第46章

"Try him licking stamps!" suggested the lanky youth in a voice that, while it reached the ears of Jimmy and others near by, including Cameron, was inaudible to the manager. Mr. Bates caught the sound, however, and glared about him through his spectacles.

Time was being wasted--the supreme offense in that office--and Mr. Bates was fast losing his self-command.

"Here!" he cried suddenly, seizing a sheaf of letters. "File these letters. You will be able to do that, I guess! File's in the vault over there!"

Cameron took the letters and stood looking helplessly from them to Mr. Bates' bald head, that gentleman's face being already in close proximity to the papers on his desk.

"Just how do I go about this?--I mean, what system do you--"

"Jim!" roared Mr. Bates, throwing down his pen, "show this con--show Mr. Cameron how to file these letters! Just like these blank old-country chumps!" added Mr. Bates, in a lower voice, but loud enough to be distinctly heard.

Jim came up with a smile of patronising pity on his face. It was the smile that touched to life the mass of combustible material that had been accumulating for the last hour in Cameron's soul.

Instead of following the boy, he turned with a swift movement back to the manager's desk, laid his sheaf of letters down on Mr. Bates' papers, and, leaning over the desk, towards that gentleman, said:

"Did you mean that remark to apply to me?" His voice was very quiet. But Mr. Bates started back with a quick movement from the white face and burning eyes.

"Here, you get out of this!" he cried.

"Because," continued Cameron, "if you did, I must ask you to apologise at once."

All smiles vanished from the office staff, even Jimmy's face assumed a serious aspect. Mr. Bates pushed back his chair.

"A-po-pologise!" he sputtered. "Get out of this office, d'ye hear?"

"Be quick!" said Cameron, his hands gripping Mr. Bates' desk till it shook.

"Jimmy! Call a policeman!" cried Mr. Bates, rising from his chair.

He was too slow. Cameron reached swiftly for his collar, and with one fierce wrench swept Mr. Bates clear over the top of his desk, shook him till his head wobbled dangerously, and flung him crashing across the desk and upon the prostrate form of the lanky youth sitting behind it.

"Call a policeman! Call a policeman!" shouted Mr. Bates, who was struggling meantime with the lanky youth to regain an upright position.

Cameron, meanwhile, walked quietly to where his coat and cap hung.

"Hold him, somebody! Hold him!" shouted Mr. Bates, hurrying towards him.

Cameron turned fiercely upon him.

"Did you want me, Sir?" he inquired.

Mr. Bates arrested himself with such violence that his feet slid from under him, and once more he came sitting upon the floor.

"Get up!" said Cameron, "and listen to me!"

Mr. Bates rose, and stood, white and trembling.

"I may not know much about your Canadian ways of business, but I believe I can teach you some old-country manners. You have treated me this morning like the despicable bully that you are. Perhaps you will treat the next old-country man with the decency that is coming to him, even if he has the misfortune to be your clerk."

With these words Cameron turned upon his heel and walked deliberately towards the door. Immediately Jimmy sprang before him, and, throwing the door wide open, bowed him out as if he were indeed the Prince of Wales. Thus abruptly ended Cameron's connection with the Metropolitan Transportation & Cartage Company.

Before the day was done the whole city had heard the tale, which lost nothing in the telling.

Next morning Mr. Denman was surprised to have Cameron walk in upon him.

"Hullo, young man!" shouted the lawyer, "this is a pretty business!

Upon my soul! Your manner of entry into our commercial life is somewhat forceful! What the deuce do you mean by all this?"

Cameron stood, much abashed. His passion was all gone; in the calm light of after-thought his action of yesterday seemed boyish.

"I'm awfully sorry, Mr. Denman," he replied, "and I came to apologise to you."

"To me?" cried Denman. "Why to me? I expect, if you wish to get a job anywhere in this town, you will need to apologise to the chap you knocked down--what's his name?"

"Mr. Bates, I think his name is, Sir; but, of course, I cannot apologise to him."

"By Jove!" roared Mr. Denman, "he ought to have thrown you out of his office! That is what I would have done!"

Cameron glanced up and down Mr. Denman's well-knit figure.

"I don't think so, Sir," he said, with a smile.

"Why not?" said Mr. Denman, grasping the arms of his office chair.

"Because you would not have insulted a stranger in your office who was trying his best to understand his work. And then, I should not have tried it on you."

"And why?"

"Well, I think I know a gentleman when I see one."

Mr. Denman was not to be appeased.

"Well, let me tell you, young man, it would have been a mighty unhealthy thing for you to have cut up any such shine in this office. I have done some Rugby in my day, my boy, if you know what that means."

"I have done a little, too," said Cameron, with slightly heightened colour.

"You have, eh! Where?"

"The Scottish International, Sir."

"By Jove! You don't tell me!" replied Mr. Denman, his tone expressing a new admiration and respect. "When? This year?"

"No, last year, Sir--against Wales!"

"By Jove!" cried Mr. Denman again; "give me your hand, boy! Any man who has made the Scottish Internationals is not called to stand any cheek from a cad like Bates."

Mr. Denman shook Cameron warmly by the hand.

"Tell us about it!" he cried. "It must have been rare sport. If Bates only knew it, he ought to count it an honour to have been knocked down by a Scottish International."

"I didn't knock him down, Sir!" said Cameron, apologetically; "he is only a little chap; I just gave him a bit of a shake," and Cameron proceeded to recount the proceedings of the previous morning.

Mr. Denman was hugely delighted.

"Serves the little beast bloody well right!" he cried enthusiastically.

"But what's to do now? They will be afraid to let you into their offices in this city."

"I think, Sir, I am done with offices; I mean to try the land."

"Farm, eh?" mused Mr. Denman. "Well, so be it! It will probably be safer for you there--possibly for some others as well."