Hersey expressed his surprise. He could hardly believe that Mr. Coldstream could really intend to dispose of the house prepared at the cost of much labour and expense, which was generally acknowledged to be the one best fitted up in the station.
“It is my wish to sell it furnished,” said Mr. Coldstream. “My wife and I are about to quit Moulmein.”
“I am sure, sir, we shall be very sorry to lose you,” said Hersey.
After settling this affair, Coldstream, with a quick step—for he wished to get over painful business as rapidly as he might—proceeded to his own office, which opened on the wharf. Coldstream, as he expected, found Smith overlooking labourers at work in the extensive yard which adjoined the premises. There were some repairs going on, and the sound of hammer and saw rose in the morning air. Smith respectfully greeted hischief, and made a remark on the work on which the labourers were employed.
“A fine bit of timber that, Mr. Coldstream; one does not see such every day,” he observed.
“No; the tree must have been a grand one before it fell beneath the axe,” said Oscar.—“Smith, come with me to the office; I have some matters which I wish to talk over with you there.”
The two men were soon seated in the office. Smith, a shrewd, intelligent man of business, thoroughly master of his work, listened with unfeigned surprise to a proposal made by his employer by which his own position in life would be entirely changed. The reader need not be troubled by details. Coldstream’s plan, matured during his long pedestrian journey, was to make over his whole business to a man who had twice managed it satisfactorily during his own absence. An agreement would have to be drawn up by a lawyer by which Smith would engage to pay a certain yearly sum to Mrs. Coldstream as interest on the capital which his former employer had sunk in the business. The offer was a liberal one, and its acceptance would at once place Smith in a position to which he had never hoped to attain.
“But, my dear sir, Mr. Coldstream, why should you give up the business?” cried Smith. “You are in the prime of life; thoroughly master of the work. I have served you, and your respected father before you, formore than twenty years. I never looked even to partnership; and now you would place everything in my hands! I hope that your health is not failing—nothing the matter with your heart.” The honest man looked with affectionate anxiety at the pale, worn face of his chief, that anxiety mitigating but not destroying the pleasure which he naturally felt at the prospect of his own advancement.
“It is not want of health that takes me from Moulmein,” replied Oscar.
“But you will return, my dear sir—you will certainly return and take up the business again? I will act under your orders and in your name, as I have twice done when you were absent in England.”