o see me?" he demanded gruffly, as he stepped inside.

Carleton, sitting at his desk, looked up and eyed the wrecking boss
coolly for a minute.

"No, Flannagan," he said curtly. "I don't."

"Then what in blazes d'ye send for me for?" Flannagan flung out in a
growl.

"See here, Flannagan," snapped Carleton, "I've no time to talk to you.
You can read, can't you? You're out!"

Flannagan blinked.

"Was that what was in the letter?"

"It was--just that," said Carleton grimly.

"Hell!" Flannagan's short laugh held a jeering note of contempt. "I
didn't open it--or mabbe I'd have known, eh?"

Carleton's eyes narrowed.

"Well, you know now, don't you?"

"Sure!" Flannagan scowled and licked his lips. "I'm out, thrown out,
and----"

"Then, get out!" Carleton cut in sharply. "You've had more chances
than any man ever got before from me, thanks to Regan; but you've had
your last, and talking won't do you any good now."

Flannagan stepped nearer to the desk.

"Talkin'! Who's talkin'?" he flared in sudden bravado. "Didn't I tell
you I didn't read your damned letter? Didn't I, eh, didn't I? D'ye
think I'd crawl to you or any man for a job? I'm out, am I? D'ye
think I came down to ask you to take me back? I'd see you rot first!
T'hell with the job--see!"

Few men on the Hill Division ever saw Carleton lose his temper--it
wasn't Carleton's way of doing things. He didn't lose it now, but his
words were like trickling drops of ice water.

"Sometimes, Flannagan," he said, "to make a man like you understand one
has to use your language. You say you'd see me rot before you asked me
for the job back again--very well. I'd rot before I gave it to you
after this. Now, will you get out--or be thrown out?"

For a moment it looked as though Flannagan was going to mix it there
and then. His eyes went ugly, and his fists, horny and gnarled,
doubled into knots, as he glared viciously at the super.

Carleton, who was afraid of no man, or any aggregation of men, his face
stern-set and hard, leaned back in his swivel chair and waited.

A tense minute passed. Then Flannagan's better sense weighed down the
balance, and, without so much as a word, he turned, went out of the
room, and stamped heavily down the stairs.

Goaded into it, or through unbridled, ill-advised impulse, men say rash
things sometimes--afterward, both Flannagan and Carleton were to
remember their own and the other's words--and the futility of t