"Your assistant is only too glad to come when she finds she can be of use to you, sir. Has the pass-book come from the bank, and did you get those returns you asked for from the Wharfdale Company?"
"What a memory you have, child! I declare I had forgotten what had stopped our work the other morning. I remembered only that you would have gone on until you dropped, but for want of material. Yes, they are both here."
"I see; and the totals both approximate to the sums you mentioned. There will be no difficulty now in preparing the rough balance-sheet. Shall I begin that at once?"
"No, no, missy; that is too large an undertaking for you. I'll have that done down at the office. I'm only too thankful to you for the assistance you've rendered me in getting the items into order, and in checking matters which I could not possibly have submitted to an uninterested person, and which I'm--well, I'm afraid I must say it--too old to go into myself!"
"Since you praise me, I have a right to claim a reward, and I demand to be allowed to carry out my work to the end. I shall be proud of it, proud to think that, when next these accounts are gone through, you will be able to look at mine, and see that they do no discredit to your book-keeping pupil."
There was a slight change in Mr. Creswell's voice as he said--
"My child, I don't suppose this task will occur again, in my lifetime. It would have stood over well until my poor boy came of age, had it pleased God to spare him; but I have only done it now from a renewal of the old stock-taking habit, a desire to see how my worldly affairs stood before----"
But the voice broke, and the sentence was left unfinished.
"But surely, sir, it must be a source of pride, and of pleasure too, to you, being, as you have often pointed out to me, the architect of your own fortunes, to have this convincing proof of their stability and your success?"
"Success! my dear child; pride! pleasure! Ah, missy, a man must have lived but a small life, if towards the end of it he looks for pride and pleasure in the amount of his balance at his bankers', or for his success in having heaped up more money than his fellows!"