"Did he say where he was living?"
"Yes, sir. 'E gave 'is address to Emily. Up 'Ampstead way it were. A long way, sir. Me and 'is mother never seemed to 'ave the time to go and look 'im up; but Emily she went with young Smith one Sunday, but they never found the street, not where Paul said 'e was livin'. There weren't no such street in 'Ampstead, sir."
"And you never thought of making further inquiries?"
"No, sir." This again with that quiet philosophy, the stolid fatalism, peculiar to those who live from day to day, from hand to mouth, who have neither leisure nor desire to peer outside the very circumscribed limits of their own hearths.
"You never made any effort to know more about what your son was doing or how he was living?" suggested the coroner, who, though accustomed to this same quiet philosophy in men and women of that class, was nevertheless strangely moved in this instance by the expression of a fatalism that carried in its train such extraordinary consequences.
But Jim Baker, mildly astonished at the coroner's insistence over so obvious a matter, explained meekly:
"We knew that Paul was doin' well, you see, sir. 'E was that splendidly dressed when Emily and young Smith seed 'im they was quite respectful like to 'im. So we knew 'e was all right."
"And you never troubled any further about your son?"
"We didn't want to interfere with 'im, sir. Gentlemen don't allus like their servants to be 'aving visitors, or to 'obnob with poor people like us."
More calm philosophy not unmixed with a delicate sense of pride this time, and a sublime if unconscious vein of selflessness.