The Cruise of the Jasper B. | Page 4

of a walrus, was preparing to
go home.
"Well?" he said, shortly.
He was a man for whom Cleggett had long felt a secret antipathy. The
man was, in short, the petty tyrant of Cleggett's little world.
"Can you spare me a couple of minutes, Mr. Wharton?" said Cleggett.
But he did not say it with the air of a person who really sues for a
hearing.
"Yes, yes--go on." Mr. Wharton, who had risen from his chair, sat
down again. He was distinctly annoyed. He was ungracious. He was
usually ungracious with Cleggett. His face set itself in the expression it
always took when he declined to consider raising a man's salary.

Cleggett, who had been refused a raise regularly every three months for
the past two years, was familiar with the look.
"Go on, go on--what is it?" asked Mr. Wharton unpleasantly, frowning
and stroking the frosty mustache, first one side and then the other.
"I just stepped in to tell you," said Cleggett quietly, "that I don't think
much of the way you are running the Enterprise."
Wharton stopped stroking his mustache so quickly and so amazedly
that one might have thought he had run into a thorn amongst the hirsute
growth and pricked a finger. He glared. He opened his mouth. But
before he could speak Cleggett went on:
"Three years ago I made a number of suggestions to you. You treated
me contemptuously--very contemptuously!"
Cleggett paused and drew a long breath, and his face became quite red.
It was as if the anger in which he could not afford to indulge himself
three years before was now working in him with cumulative effect.
Wharton, only partially recovered from the shock of Cleggett's sudden
arraignment, began to stammer and bluster, using the words nearest his
tongue:
"You d-damned im-p-pertinent------"
"Just a moment," Cleggett interrupted, growing visibly angrier, and
seeming to enjoy his anger more and more. "Just a word more.
I had intended to conclude my remarks by telling you that my contempt
for YOU, personally, is unbounded. It is boundless, sir! But since you
have sworn at me, I am forced to conclude this interview in another
fashion."
And with a gesture which was not devoid of dignity Cleggett drew
from an upper waistcoat pocket a card and flung it on Wharton's desk.
After which he stepped back and made a formal bow.

Wharton looked at the card. Bewilderment almost chased the anger
from his face.
"Eh," he said, "what's this?"
"My card, sir! A friend will wait on you tomorrow!"
"Tomorrow? A friend? What for?"
Cleggett folded his arms and regarded the managing editor with a touch
of the supercilious in his manner.
"If you were a gentleman," he said, "you would have no difficulty in
understanding these things. I have just done you the honor of
challenging you to a duel."
Mr. Wharton's mouth opened as if he were about to explode in a roar of
incredulous laughter. But meeting Cleggett's eyes, which were, indeed,
sparkling with a most remarkable light, his jaw dropped, and he turned
slightly pale. He rose from his chair and put the desk between himself
and Cleggett, picking up as he did so a long pair of shears.
"Put down the scissors," said Cleggett, with a wave of his hand. "I do
not propose to attack you now."
And he turned and left the managing editor's little office, closing the
door behind him.
The managing editor tiptoed over to the door and, with the scissors still
grasped in one hand, opened it about a quarter of an inch. Through this
crack Wharton saw Cleggett walk jauntily towards the corner where his
hat and coat were hanging. Cleggett took off his worn office jacket,
rolled it into a ball, and flung it into a waste paper basket. He put on his
street coat and hat and picked up the drab-colored cane. Swinging the
stick he moved towards the door into the hall. In the doorway he
paused, cocked his hat a trifle, turned towards the managing editor's
door, raised his hand with his pipe in it with the manner of one who
points a dueling pistol, took careful aim at the second button of the

managing editor's waistcoat, and clucked. At the cluck the managing
editor drew back hastily, as if Cleggett had actually presented a firearm;
Cleggett's manner was so rapt and fatal that it carried conviction. Then
Cleggett laughed, cocked his hat on the other side of his head and went
out into the corridor whistling. Whistling, and, since faults as well as
virtues must be told, swaggering just a little.
When the managing editor had heard the elevator come up, pause, and
go down again, he went out of his room and said to the city editor:
"Mr. Herbert,