Why?

Peasley.

Now it was a custom of Mr. Skinner's, when a subordinate laid claim to
an inalienable right which the general manager was not willing to
concede, to regard with very grave suspicion that subordinate's
loyalty to the company. If the subordinate protested Mr. Skinner
would warn him, kindly, quietly, but none the less forcefully; and if
he persisted Mr. Skinner would dispense with the services of that
subordinate so fast the offender, nine times out of ten, would be left
standing in a sort of fog and blinking at the suddenness with which
the metaphorical can had, metaphorically speaking, been tied to his
caudal appendage. Every large business office has its Skinner--a
queer combination of decency, honesty, brains and brutality, a
worshiper at the shrine of Mammon in the temple of the great god
Business, a reactionary Republican, treasurer of his church and
eventually a total loss from diabetes, brought on by lack of exercise
and worry over trifles.

However, to return to our particular Mr. Skinner and Matt Peasley, the
rebellious. In all justice to Skinner it must be admitted that his
first impulse with reference to Matt Peasley was eminently fair. He
really desired to convey to this persistent person an intimation to
the effect that the latter was, colloquially speaking, monkeying with
the buzz-saw and in imminent danger of having his head lopped off; and
he would have given it, too, provided the delivery of the ultimatum
should not have cost the Blue Star Navigation Company ninety-eight
cents a word, including the address. Consequently, Skinner, always
efficient and realizing that McBride would doubtless be enabled to