Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/88

 He was surprised when Thomas Roland showed him that he had divined his anxiety.

"You think I am overdoing it?"

"I don't know, sir."

For Roland had found Sorrell economizing coal and electric current. He would go about switching off unnecessary lights.

"I am all in on this adventure. Either we touch port—or we founder. I am going to give pours the best—the best I have in me. I wouldn't give them shoddy music. The pride of the craftsman."

Sorrell stood looking at the fire upon which he had been carefully banking a scoopful of "ovoids." His small but intelligent head was bent, and its darkness caught the firelight. His seriousness was a friend's tribute.

"One always likes to believe, sir, that if we give the best that is in us."

"I do believe it. After all—it should matter to us most. If the best doesn't pay, it is not our fault."

"All people are not as generous, sir."

"I'm not generous, man. The fact is I can't bring myself to do a thing meanly. Even the fitting up and the running of an hotel. Still, I appreciate it"

Their eyes met.

"Scientific fire building, Stephen!"

He smiled.

"Do you do it because you have a conscience?"

"Partly. There's another reason."

"I think I know it. You and I are mixed up together—somehow, heart and pocket. Well,—I would not have it otherwise."

The other problem that worried Sorrell was the inevitable advent of George Buck.

The ex-sergeant-major seemed to project a menacing adumbration, and to Sorrell he suggested the blond beast dominant, something hectoring and elephantine.

Buck!

He did not like the name; it was both too male and too American. He agreed that it was absurd of him to worry