But as he listened to that voice he began to tremble and grow white about the lips. For its very tone was a foul insult to human life, an ugly sneer whipped across the face of decent humanity, and as he realised that that voice, these words, were being used against his friend, he had a sudden blind feeling of murder in his heart. And what was so perplexing and so troubling was that this devil’s voice had in it as well a curiously familiar note, as of someone he had known.
Then it came to him in a flash—it was Merrit speaking! The owner of that voice, incredible as it seemed, was none other than that plump, well-kept, jolly-looking man who had always been so full of hearty cheerfulness and good spirits every time he had seen him.
Now, behind that little partition of glazed glass and varnished wood, this man’s voice had suddenly become fiendish. It was inconceivable, and as George listened he grew sick, as one does in some awful nightmare when he visions someone he knows doing some perverse and abominable act. But what was most dreadful of all was Randy’s voice, humble, low, submissive, modestly entreating. Merrit’s voice would cut across the air like a gob of rasping phlegm, and then Randy’s voice—gentle, hesitant, deeply troubled—would come in from time to time in answer.
“Well, what’s the matter? Don’t you want the job?”
“Why—why, yes, you know I do, Dave—haw-w”—and Randy’s voice lifted a little in a troubled and protesting laugh.
“What’s the matter that you’re not getting the business?” “Why—haw-w!”—again the little laugh, embarrassed and troubled—“I thought I was----”
“Well, you’re not!” that rasping voice cut in like a knife. “This district ought to deliver thirty per cent more business than you’re getting from it, and the Company is going to have it, too—or else! You deliver or you go right out on your can! See? The Company doesn’t give a damn about you! It’s after the business! You’ve been around a long time, but you don’t mean a damn bit more to the Company than anybody else! And you know what’s happened to a lot of other guys who got to feeling they were too big for their job—don’t you?”
“Why—why, yes, Dave—but—haw-w!” the little laugh again”—but—honestly, I never thought----”
“We don’t give a damn what you never thought!” the brutal voice ripped in. “I’ve given you fair warning now! You get the business or out you go!”
The glazed glass door burst open violently and Merrit came striding out of the little partitioned office. When he saw George, he looked startled. Then he was instantly transformed. His plump and ruddy face became wreathed in smiles, and he cried out in a hearty tone:
“Well, well, well Look who’s here! If it’s not the old boy himself!”
Randy had followed him out, and Merrit now turned and winked humorously at him, in the manner of a man who is carrying on a little bantering byplay:
“Randy,” he said, “I believe George gets better looking from day to day. Has he broken any hearts yet?”
Randy tried to smile, grey-faced and haggardly.
“I bet you’re burning them up in the Big Town,” said Merrit, turning back to George. “And, say, I read that piece in the paper about your book. Great stuff, son! We’re all proud of you!”
He gave George a hearty slap on the back and turned away with an air of jaunty readiness, picked up his hat, and said cheerfully:
“Well, what d’ya say, folks? What about one of Margaret’s famous meals, out at the old homestead? Well, you can’t hurt my feelings. I’m ready if you are. Let’s go!”
And, smiling, ruddy, plump, cheerful, a perverted picture of amiable good will to all the world, he sauntered through the door. For a moment the two old friends just stood there looking at each other, white and haggard, with a bewildered expression in their eyes. In Randy’s eyes there was also a look of shame. With that instinct for loyalty which was one of the roots of his soul, he said:
“Dave’s a good fellow…You—you see, he’s got to do these things…He—he’s with the Company.”
George didn’t say anything. For as Randy spoke, and George remembered all that Merrit had told him about the Company, a terrific picture flashed through his, mind. It was a picture he had seen in a gallery somewhere, portraying a long line of men stretching from the Great Pyramid to the very portals of great Pharaoh’s house, and great Pharaoh stood with a thonged whip in his hand and applied it unmercifully to the bare back and shoulders of the man in front of him, who was great Pharaoh’s chief overseer, and in the hand of the overseer was a whip of many tails which he unstintedly applied to the quivering back of the wretch before him, who was the chief overseer’s chief lieutenant, and in the lieutenant’s hand a whip of rawhide which he laid vigourously on the quailing body of his head sergeant, and in the sergeant’s hand a wicked flail with which he belaboured a whole company of groaning corporals, and in the hands of every corporal a knotted lash with which to whack a whole regiment of slaves, who pulled and hauled and bore burdens and toiled and sweated and built the towering structure of the pyramid.
So George didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. He had just found out something about life that he had not known before.
9. The City of Lost Men