FullReads

Carrados nodded a soothing assent. “That is all, I think,” he remarked.

“All!” exclaimed Hutchins in surprise. “Why, sir, you can’t have got much idea of it yet.”

“Quite enough. And I know it isn’t pleasant for you to be taken along the same ground over and over again.”

The man moved awkwardly in his chair and pulled nervously at his grizzled beard.

“You mustn’t take any notice of what I said just now, sir,” he apologized. “You somehow make me feel that something may come of it; but I’ve been badgered about and accused and cross-examined from one to another of them these weeks till it’s fairly made me bitter against everything. And now they talk of putting me in a lavatory–me that has been with the company for five and forty years and on the foot-plate thirty-two–a man suspected of running past a danger signal.”

“You have had a rough time, Hutchins; you will have to exercise your patience a little longer yet,” said Carrados sympathetically.

“You think something may come of it, sir? You think you will be able to clear me? Believe me, sir, if you could give me something to look forward to it might save me from–” He pulled himself up and shook his head sorrowfully. “I’ve been near it,” he added simply.

Carrados reflected and took his resolution.

“To-day is Wednesday. I think you may hope to hear something from your general manager towards the middle of next week.”

“Good God, sir! You really mean that?”

“In the interval show your good sense by behaving reasonably. Keep civilly to yourself and don’t talk. Above all”–he nodded towards a quart jug that stood on the table between them, an incident that filled the simple-minded engineer with boundless wonder when he recalled it afterwards–“above all, leave that alone.”

Hutchins snatched up the vessel and brought it crashing down on the hearthstone, his face shining with a set resolution.

“I’ve done with it, sir. It was the bitterness and despair that drove me to that. Now I can do without it.”

The door was hastily opened and Miss Hutchins looked anxiously from her father to the visitors and back again.

“Oh, whatever is the matter?” she exclaimed. “I heard a great crash.”

“This gentleman is going to clear me, Meg, my dear,” blurted out the old man irrepressibly. “And I’ve done with the drink for ever.”

“Hutchins! Hutchins!” said Carrados warningly.

“My daughter, sir; you wouldn’t have her not know?” pleaded Hutchins, rather crest-fallen. “It won’t go any further.”

Carrados laughed quietly to himself as he felt Margaret Hutchins’s startled and questioning eyes attempting to read his mind. He shook hands with the engine-driver without further comment, however, and walked out into the commonplace little street under Parkinson’s unobtrusive guidance.

“Very nice of Miss Hutchins to go into half-mourning, Parkinson,” he remarked as they went along. “Thoughtful, and yet not ostentatious.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Parkinson, who had long ceased to wonder at his master’s perceptions.

“The Romans, Parkinson, had a saying to the effect that gold carries no smell. That is a pity sometimes. What jewellery did Miss Hutchins wear?”

“Very little, sir. A plain gold brooch representing a merry-thought–the merry-thought of a sparrow, I should say, sir. The only other article was a smooth-backed gun-metal watch, suspended from a gun-metal bow.”

“Nothing showy or expensive, eh?”

“Oh dear no, sir. Quite appropriate for a young person of her position.”

“Just what I should have expected.” He slackened his pace. “We are passing a hoarding, are we not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We will stand here a moment. Read me the letterpress of the poster before us.”

“This ‘Oxo’ one, sir?”

“Yes.”

“‘Oxo,’ sir.”

Carrados was convulsed with silent laughter. Parkinson had infinitely more dignity and conceded merely a tolerant recognition of the ludicrous.

“That was a bad shot, Parkinson,” remarked his master when he could speak. “We will try another.”

For three minutes, with scrupulous conscientiousness on the part of the reader and every appearance of keen interest on the part of the hearer, there were set forth the particulars of a sale by auction of superfluous timber and builders’ material.