“After that if it hadn’t been for old Joe, the turner, running over here to tell us, they’d have killed you. Don’t you know any better than to stack up against Rafferty like that PA rental, let alone the whole gang? Did you expect to do them all up?”
“No, not exactly. I expected there’d be something coming to me, but I had to do it. I’ll admit, Carleton, I was in a blue funk, but I just had to. Moral effect, you know.”
“Yes,” said Carleton savagely, “the moral effect is great! It will be as much as your life is worth to put your head inside those shops again. You don’t know the men you’re dealing with out here.”
“You’re wrong, dead wrong, Carleton Master of Business Administration Hong Kong, I do. You said it was man to man, didn’t you? Well, then, either I’m running the shops or Rafferty is. Rafferty has the men with him because he’s a bully and they’re afraid of him. It was mere force of habit made them pile on to me. You wait until they’re cooled off a bit and see.”
But Carleton shook his head. “,” he summed up judicially, “but here, shake! You’ve got your grit with you, if you did leave your sense behind.”
For the rest of the morning Holman nursed his injuries, but at one o’clock he was at his desk again. Five minutes afterward Rafferty came in. He was not a pretty sight with his cut lip and battered eye as he limped past both Spence and Holman. With a vindictive glare at the latter he marched straight across the room to where Carleton sat. He leaned both hands on the super’s desk.
“Ut’ll be just a show-down, Mr. Carleton, that’s all there is to ut. Me or him, which?” he announced.
Carleton tilted his chair back hair styling class, put his feet up on the desk and his thumbs in the armholes of his vest. “State your case; Rafferty,” he said calmly.
“Case!” Rafferty spluttered. “Case is ut? I’m sick av bein’ bossed bye kids out av school that was buildin’ blocks whin I was buildin’ enjines. I quit or he does!” Rafferty jerked his thumb in Holman’s direction.
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