He was far from weak-hearted. In fact, few O'Reillys were that, and Johnnie had an ingrained self-assurance which might have been mistaken for impudence², but for the winning smile that went with it. Yet all the way from Havana he had seen in his mind's eye old Sam Carter intrenched behind his flat-topped desk, and that picture had more than once caused him to forget the carefully rehearsed speech in which he intended to resign his position as an employee and his prospects³ as a son-in-law.

 

That desk of Mr. Carter's was always bare and orderly, cleared for action, like the deck of a battle-ship, and over it many engagements had been fought, for the man behind it never shirked a conflict. His was a vigorous and irascible temperament⁴, compounded of old-fashioned, slow-burning black powder and nitroglycerine—a combination of incalculable destructive power. It was a perilously⁵ unstable⁷ mixture, tool, at times nothing less than a flame served to ignite it; on other occasions the office force pussy-footed past Carter's door on felt soles, and even then the slightest jar often caused the untoward⁸ thing to let go. In either event there was a deafening⁹ roar, much smoke, and a deal of damage. O'Reilly felt sure that whatever the condition of Mr. Carter's

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