The check boss tried to show him how perfectly useless it would be for anybody to steal another's checks. "You know yourself it wouldn't do him any good, Tooley," he said. "He couldn't claim anything on 'em, or make any kind of a raise on 'em; besides I've been right here every minute of the day, barrin' a couple when I ran inside the breaker on an errand. Then I left Job Taskar, as honest a man as there is in the colliery, to keep watch, and he said nothing passed while I was gone." "Well," answered Monk Tooley, "I'm cheated outer three loads, and you know what dat is ter a man what's worked overtime ter make 'em, an' has sickness and doctor's bills at home. But I'll catch de thief yet, an' when I do he'll wish he'd never know'd what a check was." As he was walking down the street after supper, smoking a pipe and thinking of his sick boy, who seemed to have grown worse since morning, and of his lost checks, Monk Tooley was accosted by Derrick Sterling, who said, "Good-evening, Mr. Tooley. How's Bill this evening?" "None de better fer your askin'," was the surly answer, for the man felt very bitter against Derrick, to whom he attributed all his son's trouble. "I'm sorry to hear that he isn't any better," continued the boy, determined not to be easily rebuffed. "Well, I'm glad yer sorry, an' wish yer was sorrier." This did not seem to promise a very pleasant conversation, but Derrick persevered, saying, "It must be very hard for Mrs. Tooley to keep so many children quiet, and I believe the doctor said Bill must not be troubled by noise, didn't he?" "Yes, an' if ye'd muzzle yer own mouth de whole place would be quieter." "My mother wanted me to say to you that if you'd like to send Bill over to our house for a few days, it's so quiet over there that she thought it would do him good, and she'd be very glad to have him," said Derrick, plunging boldly into the business he had undertaken to manage. "Tell yer mother ter mind her own brats an' leave me ter mind mine, den de road'll be wide enough for de both of us," was the ungracious answer made by the surly miner to this offer, as he turned away and left Derrick standing angry and mortified behind him. "That comes of trying to do unto others as you would have others do unto you," he muttered to himself. "Seems to me the best way is to do unto others as they do unto you, and then nobody can complain. I declare if I had as ugly a temper as that man has I'd go and drown myself. I don't believe he's got one spark of human feeling in him." Monk Tooley was not quite so bad as Derrick thought him, but just at that time everything seemed to go wrong with him, and he was like some savage animal suffering from a pain for which it can find no relief. He began to repent of his ugliness to Derrick almost as soon as the latter had left him, saying to himself, "Maybe de lad meant kindly arter all."