He nodded his assent to the proposal and, looking at the
German, laughed. The little man disappeared through a door leading to
an office and McGregor walked out into the street. At a corner he
turned and saw the German standing on the platform before the
warehouse looking after him. "He is wondering whether or not he can
whip me," thought McGregor.
* * * * *
In the apple warehouse McGregor worked for three years, rising during
his second year to be foreman and replacing the tall German. The
German expected trouble with McGregor and was determined to make short
work of him. He had been offended by the action of the gray-haired
superintendent in hiring the man and felt that a prerogative belonging
to himself had been ignored. All day he followed McGregor with his
eyes, trying to calculate the strength and courage in the huge body.
He knew that hundreds of hungry men walked the streets and in the end
decided that the need of work if not the spirit of the man would make
him submissive. During the second week he put the question that burned
in his brain to the test. He followed McGregor into a dimly-lighted
upper room where barrels of apples, piled to the ceiling, left only
narrow ways for passage. Standing in the semi-darkness he shouted,
calling the man who worked among the apple barrels a foul name, "I
won't have you loafing in there, you red-haired bastard," he shouted.
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