Nimrod: A Mighty Hunter Before the Lord
pressed fury, and longed to be able to go out there on the landing and hurl the lamp into Hunter's face.
Meanwhile, on the landing outside Owen's door, Hunter stood thinking. Someone must be got rid of to make room for the cheap man to-morrow. He had hoped to catch one of the men doing something that would have served as an excuse for instant dismissal, but there was now no hope of that happening. What was to be done? He would like to get rid of Linden, who was now really too old to be of much use, but as the old man had worked for Rushton on and off for many years, Hunter felt that he could scarcely sack him ofthand without some reasonable pretext. Still the fellow was really not worth the money he was getting. Sevenpence an hour was an absurdly large wage for an old man like him. It was preposterous: he would have to go, excuse or no excuse.
Hunter crawled downstairs again.
Jack Linden was about sixty-seven years old, but, like Philpot and as is usual with working men, he appeared older, because he had had to work very hard all his life, frequently without proper food and clothing. His life had been passed in the midst of a civilisation, the benefits of which he had never been permitted to enjoy. But of course he knew nothing about all this. He had never expected or wished to be allowed to enjoy such things; he had always been of opinion that they were never intended for the likes of him. He called himself a Conservative and was very patriotic. At the time when the Boer war commenced, Linden was an enthusiastic jingo: his enthusiasm had been somewhat damped when his youngest son, a reservist, had been called to the front, where he had died of fever and exposure. When this soldier son went away, he left his wife and two children, aged respectively four and five years, in his father's care. After he died they stayed on with the old people. The young woman earned a little occasionally by doing needlework, but was really dependent on her father-in-law. Notwithstanding his poverty he was glad to have them in the house, because of late years his wife had been getting very feeble, and, since the shock occasioned by the news of the death of her son, needed someone constantly with her.
Linden was still working at the vestibule doors when the foreman came downstairs. Misery stood watching him for some minutes without speaking. At last he said loudly:
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