Page:The little blue devil (IA littlebluedevil00mackiala).pdf/131

So they never had their talk out, after all, but there were plenty of other things to say. Still, Tony was not in a communicative mood that week at Paranui. They talked mostly of station matters, and renewed a solid comradeship, and he was sorry to go away.

It came upon him oddly that except when leaving the Straines he had never been sorry before.

From Wellington he went across to Sydney. There he quarrelled violently with the representative of the firm that employed him over a matter of commission. Tony held that the other was something very like a thief; it is probable that he stated this without sufficient ambiguity and the result was a serious disagreement.

Lasker would not have greatly resented being told that not all his profits were legitimate if this had been said in a mild or admiring manner, but nobody could have called Tony mild.

Perhaps it was partly Lasker’s fault; he had too abruptly offered a share in the plunder, and when Tony shied at it he had been openly contemptuous.

“It’s no use bein’ mealy mouthed,” said Lasker.

Tony took him at his word, and was not. Lasker replied in kind. Then Tony’s temper flashed out with a hiss and a crackle—his voltage was unusually high, as Waterhouse had remarked in an effort to echo the electrician’s slang of which he heard so much—and for a time things were lively in the office. He let his anger have free rein—a luxury always worth much to him—but Lasker had the “pull” and therefore the “laugh.” Tony was dismissed next day by cable.

He was provokingly unmoved at the news; Lasker watched him closely for signs of regret, but could see none. As a matter of fact, it suited him very well to leave just then. He wanted to go up-country and seek out Bill Hooker and one or two others, and the agency had more or less tied him