Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/49

 atmosphere a little while, to be outspoken and independent. A superior might be acknowledged on a job, scorned and contemned for the pull that put him there, but in no other connection, social or civil. Angus Valorous was simply living up to the standards of McPacken when he bristled before Mrs. Cowgill and stood on his rights as a man. If he had acted otherwise he would have been despised, not alone by the men of McPacken, but by the women and children, and Mrs. Cowgill first of all.

"Aw, go ahn!" said Angus, jerking at his apron-strings. "Go ahn! If you want somebody else to do your dirty work for you, go and git him. That's ahl I got to say!"

Mrs. Cowgill stood regarding him in towering scorn, knowing very well that Angus had no more notion of quitting than she had of discharging him.

"Whatever sense you had when you was born leaked out of you before they could bring a teacup to catch it in!" she said. "Go to work, and don't give me any more of your slack!"

To relieve Angus of the necessity of carrying his bluff any farther, and to save her own dignity in the bargain, Mrs. Cowgill left him with that humiliating aspersion. She marched through the kitchen and dining-room, heading for the office, from which she heard the faint tinkle of the little desk bell. She was in no great hurry to attend the caller; as she went along she speculated on whether it might be a cowhand wanting a cigar, or a railroader a plug of tobacco, or an agent