"I've been teaching him something about smoking," the man admitted.
"So I've heard," said Tom. "That's why I've dropped in here---to
tell you what I think about it."
"If you're going to get cranky," warned the cook, angrily, "you
needn't take the trouble."
"Punishing Alf isn't your work, Leon," Tom went on quietly. "I'm
one of the heads here, and the management of this camp has been
left more or less in my hands. I gave you a weak, deluded, almost
worthless little piece of humanity as a helper. I'll admit that
he isn't much good, but yet he's a boy aged fourteen, at any rate,
and therefore there may be in that boy the makings of a man.
Your way of tackling the job is no good. It's a fool way, and,
besides, it's a brutal, unmanly way."
"I guess you'd better stop, right where you are, Mister Reade!"
snapped Leon, an ugly scowl coming to his face. "I don't have
to take any such talk as that from you, even if you are the boss.
You may be the boss here, but I'm older and I've seen more of
the world.
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