my way when I persuaded Mason and Fitch to discharge him. But it
was the missionaries who requested me to do so. He was undoing
their work by his reprehensible example."

"Afterwards, when he got on the railroad, your railroad, he was
discharged without cause," Kennedy challenged.

"Not so," was the quick answer. "I had him into my private office
and talked with him for half an hour."

"You discharged him for inefficiency?"

"For immoral living, if you please."

Dr. Kennedy laughed with a grating sound. "Who the devil gave it to
you to be judge and jury? Does landlordism give you control of the
immortal souls of those that toil for you? I have been your
physician. Am I to expect tomorrow your ukase that I give up Scotch
and soda or your patronage? Bah! Ford, you take life too
seriously. Besides, when Joe got into that smuggling scrape (he
wasn't in your employ, either), and he sent word to you, asked you
to pay his fine, you left him to do his six months' hard labour on
the reef. Don't forget, you left Joe Garland in the lurch that
time. You threw him down, hard; and yet I remember the first day
you came to school--we boarded, you were only a day scholar--you had
to be initiated. Three times under in the swimming tank--you
remember, it was the regular dose every new boy got. And you held
back. You denied that you could swim. You were frightened,
hysterical--"