"Tame yourself, howadji, I enseech you! Why are you not rejoiceful? Will it not mean much money for you; and—"
"You mangy brown rat!" shouted Kirby in fury. "What in blazes have you done? You know, as well as I do, that such an idea will never get out of those fellaheens' skulls, once it's really planted there. They'll believe every word of that wall-eyed rot you've been telling them! And they'll go on a genuine strike on the strength of it. They'll—"
"Of an assuredly, howadji, they will," assented the bewildered Najib. "I made me very assured of that. Four times I told it all over to them, until even poor Imbarak—whose witfulness hath been beblown out from his brain by the breath of the Most High—until even Imbarak understood. But why it should enrouse you to a lionsome raging I cannot think. I bethought you would be pleasured—"
"Listen to me!" ordered Kirby, fighting hard for self-control and forcing himself to speak with unnatural slowness. "You've done more damage than if you had dynamited the whole mine and then turned a river into the shaft. This kind of news spreads. In a week there won't be a worker east of the Jordan who won't be a strike fan. And these people here will work the idea a step farther. I know them. They'll decide that if one strike is good, two strikes are better. And they will strike every week—loafing between times."
This prospect brought a grin of pure bliss to Najib's swarthy face. He looked in new admiration upon his farsighted chief. Kirby went on:
"Not that that will concern us. For this present strike will settle the Cabell mine. It means ruin to our business here, and the loss of all your jobs, as well as my own. Why, you idiot, can't you see what you've done? If you don't take that asinine grin off your ugly face, I'll knock it off!" he burst out, his hard-held patience momentarily fraying.
Then, taking new hold on his self-control, Kirby began again to talk. As if addressing a defective child, which, as a matter of fact, he was doing, he expounded the hideous situation.
He explained the disloyalty to the Cabells of such a move as Najib had planned. He pointed out the pride he and Najib had taken in the new business they had secured for the home office; and the fact that this new business had brought an increase of pay to them both as well as to the fellaheen. He showed how great a triumph for the mine was this vast increase of business; and the stark necessity of impressing the new customers by the promptitude and uniform excellence of all shipments. He pointed out the utter collapse to this and to all the rest of the mine's connections which a strike would entail. Najib listened unmoved.
Hopeless of hammering American ethics into the brain of an Oriental, Kirby set off at a new angle. He explained the loss of prestige and position which he himself would suffer. He would be discharged—probably by cable—for allowing the mine's bourgeoning prosperity to go to pieces in such fashion. Another and less lenient and understanding manager would be sent out to take his place. A manager whose first official act would probably be the discharging of Najib as the cause of the whole trouble.
Najib listened to this with a new interest, but with no great conviction.