The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel by John Maurice Miller
page 10 of 315 (03%)
page 10 of 315 (03%)
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"'What do you want, my good woman?' says he, snappish like. 'Very sorry,'
says he, when I'd told him that I'd eleven children and that Tom had worked for him for four years and worked well, too. 'Very sorry,' says he, my good woman, 'but your husband should have thought of that before. It's against my principles,' says he, 'to have any unionists about the place. I'm told he's been making the other men discontented. I can't take him back. You must blame him, not me,' says he. "I could feel the temper in me, just as though he'd given me a couple of stiff nobblers of real old whisky. 'So you won't take Tom back,' says I, 'not for the sake of his eleven children when it's their poor heart-broken mother that asks you?' "'No,' says he, short, getting up from his chair. 'I can't. You've bothered me long enough,' says he. "I So then I decided it was time to tell the old villain just what I thought of his grinding men down to the last penny and insulting every decent girl that ever worked for him. He got as black in the face as if he was smoking already on the fiery furnace that's waiting for him below, please God, and called the shrimp of an office boy to throw me out. 'Leave the place, you disgraceful creature, or I'll send for the police,' says he. But I left when I got ready to leave and just what I said to him, the dirty wretch, I'll tell to you, Mrs. Phillips, some time when she"--nodding at Nellie--"isn't about. She's getting so like a blessed saint that one feels as if one's in church when she's about, bless her heart!" "You're getting very particular all at once, Mrs. Macanany," observed Nellie. |
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