'Look here, Vessons! Be reasonable. Listen to me. I'm your master,
aren't I?'

'Ah! Till a month.'

'Well, you take orders from me; that's all that matters. I'm master
here.'

The tones of his ancestry were in his voice--an ancestry that ruled
over and profited by men and women as good as themselves, or better.

'So we'll say no more about it,' he finished, with the frank and
winning smile that was one of his few charms.

Vessons stared at him for some time, and, as he stared, an idea
occurred to him. It was, he felt, a good idea. It would enable him to
keep his swan and his self-respect and to get rid of Hazel. As he
pondered it, his face slowly creased into smiles. He touched his
forelock--a thing only done on pay-days--and withdrew, murmuring,
'Notice is took back.'

They saw him go past the window with the steps and the shears,
evidently to attend to the swan.

Reddin thought how easy it was to manage these underlings--a little
authority, a little tact. He turned to Hazel, crying in the high
armchair of black oak with its faded rose-coloured cushions. She was
crying not only because Vessons had come off victorious, but because
her position was now defined, and was not what she would have liked,
but also because Reddin's manner to her jarred after last night.