suspense until there was a small island of attentive silence around
him. But the rest of the bar-room was louder with laughter and voices
than it had been when he entered. One group in particular were feeling
their liquor.
--So I took her hand,' Dirk went on, 'and I said,
'Now I've got a little surprise for you. ' 'What is it?' she asked,
as though she didn't know. 'Close your eyes and I'll show you.' I
told her . And a voice rang loudly from across the room: --You take
that big ugly bastard Courtney. What does he do except drive around in
a big motor-car and make speeches.
Dirk stopped in the middle of a sentence and looked up. Suddenly his
face was pale. The man who had spoken was one of the group at the far
end of the bar. He was dressed in a shabby over-all of blue denim.
A man no longer young, with the lines of hardship etched deep around
his eyes and mouth.
'You know who gives him his money? I tell you-we give it to him.
Without these he'd be finished-he wouldn't last a month.' The man held
up his hands, they were calloused and the nails were split and ragged,
encrusted with dark semicircles of dirt. 'That's where he gets his
money. Colonel Bloody Courtney. Dirk was staring across at the
speaker; his hands lay clenched on the counter in front of him.
Now suddenly the room was very quiet-so that the man's next words
seemed even louder.
'You know what he pays,- thirty-two pounds a month top journeyman's
wages! Thirty-two pounds a month!'
'The minimum rate is twenty-five-' one of his companions observed
dryly. 'I reckon you're free to move on to a better job-if you can
find it. Me, I'll stay on here. ' 'That's not the point. That big
idle bastard's making a fortune out of us-I reckon he can afford to pay
more. I reckon . . . ' 'Do you reckon you're worth that much?' Dirk
jumped up from his stool and shouted the question down the length of
the counter. There was a stir of interest and every head turned
towards him.
'Leave him, Dirk, he's drunk. Don't start anything,' Henry whispered
in agitation, and then raising his voice and turning to the other,
'You've had enough, Norman. Time you were on your way. Your old lady
will be waiting dinner for you.'
'Good God!' the man was peering in Dirk's direction, his eyes focusing
blearily.
'Good God! It's Courtney's pup.'
And Dirk's face set into nervous rigidity. He began to walk slowly
down the room towards the man.
'Leave him, Dirk.' To restrain him Archy caught his arm as he passed.
But Dirk shrugged it off.
'You insulted my father. You called him a bastard!'
'That's right.' Norman nodded. 'Your daddy's a bastard all right.
Your daddy's a big lucky bastard who's never done a full day's work in
his life-a big, lucky, bloodsucking bastard. And he's whelped an
equally useless pup, who spends his time .
