"My man, I'll try."
He called me aside, explained to me, and asked my advice and consent, as Abel Fletcher's son, to a plan that had come into his mind. It was to write orders, which each man presenting at our mill, should receive a certain amount of flour.
"Do you think your father would agree?"
"I think he would."
"Yes," John added, pondering—"I am sure he would. And besides, if he does not give some, he may lose all. But he would not do it for fear of that. No, he is a just man—I am not afraid. Give me some paper, Jael."
He sat down as composedly as if he had been alone in the counting-house, and wrote. I looked over his shoulder, admiring his clear, firm hand-writing; the precision, concentrativeness, and quickness, with which he first seemed to arrange and then execute his ideas. He possessed to the full that "business" faculty, so frequently despised, but which, out of very ordinary material, often makes a clever man; and without which the cleverest man alive can never be altogether a great man.
When about to sign the orders, John suddenly stopped. "No; I had better not."
"Why so?"
"I have no right; your father might think it presumption."
"Presumption? after to-night!"