“What 's between your honor and him?” said O'Reardon, with an assurance that his present power suggested.
“How dare you ask me, sir? Do you imagine that when I take such a fellow as you into my service, I make him my confidant and my friend?”
“That's true, sir,” said the other, whose face only grew paler under this insult, while his manner regained all its former subserviency,—“that's true, sir. My interest about your honor made me forget myself; and I was thinking how I could be most use to you. But, as your honor says, it's no business of mine at all.”
“None whatever,” said Sewell, sternly; for a sudden suspicion had crossed him of what such a fellow as this might become if once intrusted with the power of a secret.
“Then it's better, your honor,” said he, with a slavish whine, “that I 'd keep to what I 'm fit for,—sweeping out the office, and taking the messages, and the like, and not try things that 's above me.”
“You 'll just do whatever my service requires, and whenever I find that you do it ill, do it unfaithfully, or even unwillingly, we part company, Master O'Reardon. Is that intelligible?”
“Then, sir, the sooner you fill up my place the better. I 'll give notice now, and your honor has fifteen days to get one that will suit him better.”
Sewell turned on him a look of savage hatred. He read, through all the assumed humility of the fellow's manner, the determined insolence of his stand.
“Go now, and go to the devil, if you like, so that I never see your hang-dog face again; that 's all I bargain for.”
“Good-morning, sir; there's the key of the office, and that's the key of the small safe; Mr. Simmes has the other. There 's a little account I have,—it's only a few shillings is coming to me. I 'll leave it here to-morrow; and if your honor would like me to tell the new man about the people that come after your honor—who 's to be let in and who 's not—”