as about to crush one of the
Japanese shrubs that she had been at such pains to have planted along
the bank of the canon.

"Look out--don't hurt that bush!" she ordered peremptorily, as she was
in the habit of speaking to servants.

The mason tranquilly deposited the rock full upon the shrub and
proceeded to slap mortar around it and tap it home with his mallet.

"Didn't you hear me?" Adelle demanded, stepping forward and pointing at
the offending rock with her heavily jeweled finger. "Take it out! I
don't want the shrubs killed."

The mason looked up for the first time. There was a glint in his clear
blue eyes as he said distinctly, without any trace of foreign accent,--

"It's got to go there!"

A smile relaxed his red face, a scornful smile at the impertinence of
this dainty specimen of woman-kind who thought that the foundation
course of his rock wall could be disturbed for such a trivial matter as
a bush.

"No, it hasn't," Adelle rejoined in her imperious tone. "Fix it some
other way."

But the mason continued to pat his rock, looking around for the next one
to lay upon it.

"Do what I say!" Adelle ordered, almost angrily, irritated by the man's
obstinacy.

Then the mason rose, and with his trowel tapping the rock said slowly
and emphatically,--

"I'm laying this wall--and I don't take no orders from you!"

Whereupon, after another shot from his hard blue eyes, he turned back to
the wall.

At first Adelle was speechless; then she asked in a less peremptory
tone,--

"Don't you know who I am?"

"Yes," the mason called back over his shoulder. "You're the boss up
there." He indicated the unfinished house with a wave of his trowel, and
went on with his work. He seemed indifferent to the fact that he was
dealing with the mistress of Highcourt, and Adelle helplessly retreated.

"I will have you discharged!" she said as she walked away.

The mason did not reply, and his face exhibited no emotion over this
dire threat.

After considerable search Adelle found the contractor and made her
complaint against the mason.

"I warned him not to hurt the shrubs and he kept right on. Please
discharge him at once."

The contractor, who had not been long away from the trowel and mortar
himself, frowned.

"He's a good worker, ma'am," he protested. "It ain't always you can get
a man like him out on a country job. Happens there is a building strike
in the city, and he needed the work, so he came. And he's been