“And who will make me suffer, I should like to know?” cried Ben, gazing with contempt upon the absurd figure cut by this champion of reporters.
“Perhaps I will,” answered Billings, affecting his languid drawl, “or perhaps I will leave it to my friend, ‘Lord Steerem,’ don’t you know.”
“You impudent puppy!” screamed Ben in a fury, now recognizing Billings as the reporter who had made him the laughing-stock of all New London. “If you weren’t so small as to be beneath contempt I’d thrash you to within an inch of your life. Now clear out of here before I hurt you, and don’t you ever dare come in my way again.”
“I’m a little threshing-machine myself,” answered Billings, coolly, “and I am geared up to just about your size, Mr. Bigman, So come on if you dare. I don’t care that”—snapping his fingers in Ben’s face—“for you or your bluster.”
Ben aimed a blow at him, which the reporter cleverly dodged. Before there was a chance for another, the by-standers, who were vastly entertained by Billings’ exhibition of pluck, rushed in and separated the two, declaring that Ben ought to be ashamed of himself to strike at a fellow not half his size.
Ben sulkily left the hotel, vowing vengeance against both Billings and Myles, while the little man, who was prevented from following him, entertained his captors with the story of “Lord Steerem,” the famous coxswain.
The division superintendent was a harsh man, who entertained no affection for his nephew, and had only given him his position because he was his brother’s son. He suspected Ben’s unfitness for the place, and had been on the point of discharging him several times. Now, when Ben entered the office, he found his uncle greatly dissatisfied with his conduct of affairs during the preceding four days.
“If it had not been for your overbearing manner and absurd display of authority,” he said to Ben, “there would have been no serious outbreak here, nor any destruction of the company’s property. Now I’ll trouble you for the key to the safe.”
With all his known faults Ben had never been suspected of dishonesty by his uncle, who was obliged to trust his assistant implicitly in many things.
Ben hesitated a moment and then said that he had left the key in his room for greater safety, and would be obliged to go there for it.