Page:Arthur Stranger--The Stranger.djvu/18

I4 "You certainly don't need to go over that again, Major," he said as he leaned back in his chair. "I understand those things. And I also understand that I promised to give you a decision this morning. Well, I'm not going to give it to you right now. I've made you do a considerable amount of waiting, and now I'm to make you wait just a little bit longer. For I want you to step out into what they call our Chin Quad and get what I've got to say about this Loan business there!"

John Hardy watched his visitor pass out through the door, smiling at the other's slight frown of perplexity. He sat for several minutes, deep in thought. Then he leaned forward and touched a buzzer-button on the end of his desk.

"Wilson," he said, as his secretary stepped into the room; "I want you to tell the department-heads to have the boys come out into the Chin Quad, the whole bunch of them. I want them there right away."

In an incredibly short space of time a soft-pedal seemed to fall on that noisy key-board of industry. Machinery droned off into silence, pulleys grew still, carriers came to rest. There was a scattering tidal-wave of bare-armed workmen out into the clear October sunlight between the ivy-draped walls. They met and merged in the green-swarded quadrangle with the bare little wooden platform at one end. About this platform they sat and squatted on the grass in semicircular rows, easily, without constraint, not unlike Tommies at a rest-camp sing-sing, some of them even smoking. It was, plainly, an old story with them. The only novelty lay in the untowardness of the hour they were foregathering there.

There was not even a stir, much less a cheer, as the Chief, bareheaded and squinting a little from the strong sunlight, mounted the platform. He stood looking at them for a moment or two, apparently collecting his thoughts. And then he began to speak.

"Men," he said in a clear and vibrant voice that was new to them and even to himself, "men, I'm not much of a talker, and you know it. But this morning I've got something to say, and I want to say it straight and simple. We've had our troubles, this last year or two, both inside these gates and outside of them. But those troubles are over, and we understand each other a little better. But there's one thing I don't think I've quite understood, until