there is, say so. You can have it. You can have that head clerk's job if
you want it. And I think that after a while I could get you mine, for
I'm only there to fill a gap."

Kieran shook his head. "It wouldn't do."

"Why not? You're the man for the job."

"No, I'm not the man. You haven't got me quite right. I can point out
errors, but I'm not the man to correct them. I'm not a good executive."

"You certainly were the good executive in the bosun's case."

"N-no, no. You mustn't count him. If he was a John L. Sullivan, say, in
his good days, it would prove something. Besides, I don't care for
fighting--for beating people up. I do hate though to see a bully or a
faker getting the best of it, and maybe having had time to knock around
and study people, I can pick out a bully or a faker quicker than most
people, and seeing somebody getting too much the best of it, why,
sometimes I can't help butting in."

"And because of that faculty of seeing things, once you made up your
mind to settle down to it, you'd make good on this job I'm offering
you."

"No, you've got me wrong again. I'm not a reformer, and never will be,
I hope. Reformers, or most that ever I met, are only men who first tried
to play politics and got licked at it. I'm only an observer."

"But you like a fight?"