"Why did you kill that shrub when I asked you not to put the stone upon it?" she demanded next.
The man looked at her for a moment with an expression of mingled surprise, dislike, and amusement.
"Asked me! You ordered me."
"Why did you do it?" Adelle repeated, ignoring this subtle distinction.
"Guess I felt like it," he replied evasively. "I don't take no orders except from my boss," he grumbled. "Don't like no interference."
"But it's my place—you were working for me!" Adelle rejoined convincingly.
"And," the mason demanded bluntly, "who in hell are you, anyway?"
Adelle had not heard such direct language from a man for a good many years, although Archie sometimes hinted the same thing in slightly more polished language. At first she was staggered and thought she had made a mistake in giving this man another opportunity to insult her. But Adelle, thanks to her origin, was not easily insulted. She stayed on—to hear more.
"You've got a big pile of money and that place and lots of servants and motors and all the rest," the mason went on to explain. "But that's no reason you should go bossing around my job 'bout what you don't know nothing. I get my orders from the boss, my boss—see? And I know how to lay a wall as good as any man—and your damned bushes shouldn't been there."
"You needn't be insulting," Adelle gasped with an attempt at dignity.