Part 29 (1/2)

What wage is it, after all, for the years of a man's strength that now, with a few more years to live, he should lose it?”

”Have you done?”

Mr. Benny stood up. ”I should never have done, sir, until you listened to me.”

”You refuse to write the letter?”

”I humbly beg you, sir, not to ask me to write it.”

”But I do ask you to write it.”

Mr. Benny thrust both hands nervously beneath his coat-tails, walked to the window and stood for a second or two, staring out upon the garden.

His cheeks were flushed. He had arrived at one of those moments in life which prove a man; but of heroism he was not conscious at all.

”I am very sorry, Mr. Samuel,” said he, turning again to the table.

”If your father had told me to write such a letter, I should have used an old servant's liberty and warned him that he was acting unjustly.

Though it made him angry, he would have understood. But I see, sir, that I have no right to argue with you; and so let us have no more words.

I cannot write what you wish.”

”My father,” answered Mr. Sam, wagging a finger at him, ”tolerated many things I do not propose to tolerate. He suffered this old dotard to annoy the public, though long past work. I am not surprised to learn that he suffered you to forget your place.”

Mr. Benny gathered up his papers without answering.

”Look here, Benny,” Mr. Sam resumed, after watching him for a while, ”I don't wish to be hard on you; I only require obedience. It's a bit foolish of you--eh?--to be quarrelling with your bread and b.u.t.ter.”

”May be, sir.”

”If you leave me, I wish it to be understood that 'tis by your own choice.”

The little man met his master's eyes now with a look of something like contempt. ”If that salves your conscience, sir, by all means have it so.

But if 'tis to be plain truth between us, you want a younger clerk.”

”Did I ever complain of your incompetence?”

”My incompetence, sir? 'Tis my competence you surely mean? I reckon no man can be sure of being a good servant till he has learnt to advise for his master's good against his master's will.”

”What's the matter with 'ee, Peter?” asked Nicky Vro as he rowed Mr. Benny across the ferry at dinnertime. ”You're looking as downcast as a gib cat.”

”I was wondering,” answered Mr. Benny gently, ”how many times we two have crossed this ferry together.”

Nicky Vro pondered. ”Now that's the sort o' question I leave alone o' set purpose, and I'll tell 'ee for why. One night, years ago, and just as we was off to bed, my poor wife says to me, 'I wonder how many times you've crossed the ferry, first and last.' 'Hundreds and thousands,' I says, just like _so_. She'd a-put the question in idleness, an' in idleness I answered it. Will you believe it?--between twelve and one in the morning I woke up with my head full o' figgers. Not another wink o' sleep could I get, neither. Soon as ever I shook up the bolster an' settled down for another try, I see'd myself whiskin' back and forth over this here piece o' water like a piston-rod in a steams.h.i.+p, and off I started countin' for dear life. Count? I tell you it lasted for nights, and by the end o' the week I had to see the doctor about it. I was losin' flesh. Doctor, he gave me a bottle o' trade--very flat-tasted stuff it was, price half a crown, with a sediment if you let it stand; and after a few days the trouble wore off. They tell me there's a new pupil teacher up to the school can answer questions like that while you're countin' his b.u.t.tons.

I've seen the fellow: a pigeon-chested poor creatur', with his calves put on the wrong way. I'd a mind to tell 'en that with figgers, as with other walks o' life, a man's first business is to look after his own.

But I didn't like to, he looked so harmless. Puttin' one thing with another, Peter Benny, I'd advise you to leave these speckilations alone.

Be it a thousand times or ten thousand, there's only one time that counts --the last; and only the Lord A'mighty knows when that'll be.”

Mr. Benny sighed. ”When the Lord sets a man free of his labour, Nicky, He does it gently. But we have to deal with an earthly master, we two, and his mercies aren't so gentle.”