“Do! Does it look like thar's anything to do?”
Hoag hurled the words at him, his eyes flashing beneath beetling brows, his lip curled and drawn tight across tobacco-stained teeth.
Paul stared at him unflinchingly. “Shipments have always been made in the morning,” he said, calmly. He drew a note-book from his pocket and opened it. “I had this down for the first thing to-morrow.”
“It ain't what you have down, but what I want done, when an' how I like it. I couldn't find you, so I had to do it myself.”
“We won't talk about that at all,” Paul retorted, drawn into anger he was trying hard to control. “I know I earn my salary, and I'll be treated like an intelligent human being while I am at work or I'll quit. Do you understand that? I'll quit!”
“Damn your soul”—Hoag looked about on the floor as if for something with which to strike the speaker to earth—“do you mean to stand thar an' give me any of your jaw?”
“Not any more than you need to make you act like a man.” Paul bent a steady and fearless gaze on him that made him flinch and drop his eyes. But Hoag was not subdued. He blinked sullenly for a moment, swore at a negro who was staggering past under an overloaded truck, followed him to the wagon at the door, where he stood, a mere husk of a man buffeted by fierce inner storms. Presently he came back to Paul; he had unconsciously crushed the order for the leather in his hand and broken the tip of his pencil.
“Thar's no use beatin' about the bush,” he began, in a tone which showed that he was now more sure of his ground. “I'm goin' to give you the truth straight from the shoulder. An' if you don't like it you kin lump it.” Another loaded truck was passing and Hoag stopped it. He made a flurried effort to count the rolls, and failing to do so, he waved his hand impatiently, swore at the man, and the truck was trundled on to the door.
“You needn't waste time getting to it,” Paul began firmly. “I know what's the matter with you. You've made up your mind that slavery is not yet over. You've heard about what I am doing for my mother, and—”
“That's it,” Hoag's dead face flared. “I may as well tell you the truth an' be done with it. Not a dollar—not one dollar of my money shall go to a low-lived, dirt-eatin' skunk like Jeff Warren.”