"The boys say," growled Waugh to Howells, "that he acts like one of them damn spying dude sons proprietors sometimes puts in among the men to learn how to work 'em harder for less.

He don't seem to catch on that he's got to get his money out of his own hands." "Touch him up a bit," said Howells, who had worshiped Hiram Ranger and in a measure understood what had been in his mind when he dedicated his son to a life of labor.

"If it becomes absolutely necessary I'll talk to him.
But maybe you can do the trick." Waugh, who had the useful man's disdain of deliberately useless men and the rough man's way of feeling it and showing it, was not slow to act on Howells's license.

That very day he found Arthur unconsciously and even patronizingly shirking the tending of a planer so that his teacher, Bud Rollins, had to do double work.

Waugh watched this until it had "riled" him sufficiently to loosen his temper and his language.