vel that he doesn’t try to stoush me. I sometimes wish he would.”
“I believe ye,” said Father Denis dryly.
“Heaven knows how he has the face to call himself a manager. Manager! Taking it all through, he doesn’t put in more than one half-day a week at the claim. One half-day! Then he goes back to the hotel, or up to the Scannells’, and writes up reports. Manager! There’s not a sluicing-hand in all Otago knows less about hydraulics than he does.”
O’ coorse. Every man wud like tu be the handle ov the spade. It’s niver that easy worrking wid a fut on yer shoulder all the day. But there’s betther men than yersilf done ut, Ormond.”
“I don’t want to be the handle. D’you think I’m minding what it is to me? Kiliat can call me a digger instead of working overseer, if it pleases him. I don’t care. But it’s the old Lion herself—the claim—and all the shareholders who will suffer for this rotting. That’s what’s driving me wild!”
He flung through the half-lighted room restlessly. The priest bit his thumb-nail and frowned. He was a worker himself, and he understood.
“Can’t ye git howld on the bhoys anyways? A man in his sinses wud see ye can’t worrk a claim widout money, sure.”
“They are not in their senses, then I sup-
