"Hasn't been near the office since Mr. Surrey dismissed him."
"Met him anywhere?"
"Nein!" laughing, "I haven't laid eyes on him."
"Well, the men have been saying or doing something then."
"N-no; why, what an inquisitor it is!"
"'N-no.' You don't say that full and plain, Abram. Something has been going wrong with the men. Now what is it? Come, out with it."
"Well, mother, if you will know, you will, I suppose; and, as you never get tired of the story, I'll go over the whole tale.
"So long as I was Mr. Surrey's office-boy, to make his fires, and sweep and dust, and keep things in order, the men were all good enough to me after their fashion; and if some of them growled because they thought he favored me, Mr. Given, or some one said, 'O, you know his mother was a servant of Mrs. Surrey for no end of years, and of course Mr. Surrey has a kind of interest in him'; and that put everything straight again.
"Well! you know how good Mr. Willie has been to me ever since we were little boys in the same house,—he in the parlor and I in the kitchen; the books he's given me, and the chances he's made me, and the way he's put me in of learning and knowing. And he's been twice as kind to me ever since I refused that offer of his."
"Yes, I know, but tell me about it again."