"You have?"
"Yes; I sent my letter of resignation yesterday."
"I'm heartily glad of it, old fellow, and selfishly glad, too, for it was to persuade you to do that that I sat down to talk to you. You see my health is not very good lately; the fact is I have been using the spur too much, and am pretty well run down with overwork. The publishers have been urging me to get an assistant, and the trouble is to get one who can really relieve me of a share of the work. I can get plenty of people to undertake it, but I have to go over their work to be sure of it, and it's easier to do it myself from the first. Now you are just the man I want, if you can stand the salary. The publishers will let me pay forty dollars a week. You can make more than that from the outside, I suppose, but it's better to be in a regular situation, I think. How would you like to try the thing?"
"Nothing could be more to my taste. I think I should like this better than daily paper work, and besides it gives one a better opportunity for growth. But before we talk any more about it I feel myself in honor bound to tell you what has happened to me lately. If you care then to repeat your offer, I shall gladly accept it, but if you feel the slightest hesitation about it, I shall not blame you for not renewing it."
And Robert told him everything, but Dudley declined to believe that there had been any just cause for the arrest, or that Robert had in any way violated the strictest canons of honor.
This young man seemed, indeed, to be perfect master of the art of making people believe in him in spite of the most damaging facts. Miss Sudie's faith in him never wavered for an instant. Even Billy had to keep a synopsis of the evidence against his cousin constantly in mind to keep himself from "believing that he couldn't see through glass," as he phrased it. The New York lawyer, summoned to get the young man out of jail, backed his faith in him, as we have seen, by indorsing his draft for several hundred dollars; and now Dudley, after hearing a plain statement of the facts from Robert's own lips, dismissed them as of no consequence, and set up his own unreasonable faith as a complete answer to them. He renewed his offer, and Robert accepted it, becoming office editor of the weekly paper for which he had recently been writing.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Major Pagebrook asserts himself.
It now becomes necessary to a proper understanding of this history that we shall go back a day or two, to the day, in fact, on which Robert's letters were received at Shirley. I said there were three New York letters in the mail-bag thrown off at the Court House that morning. The third letter there referred to was from the law firm of Steel, Flint & Sharp. It was addressed to Edwin Pagebrook, Esq., and quite by accident it fell into that gentleman's hands. I say by accident, because Cousin Sarah Ann had taken unusual precautions to prevent precisely this result. After writing to the lawyers, it occurred to that estimable lady that a reply would come in due time, and that as she had taken the liberty of signing her husband's name to her letter, the reply would be addressed to him rather than to her, and she greatly feared that he would have an opportunity to read it. She particularly wished that this should not happen. She knew her mild-mannered and long-suffering husband thoroughly, and, while she felt free to torment him in various ways, she had learned, from one or two bits of experience, that it was not the part of wisdom to tax his endurance too far. Accordingly she took pains to prevent him from visiting the Court House while she was expecting the letter. She laid various plans for the purpose of keeping him occupied on the plantation every day, and took care to secure the first look into the family postbag whenever the servant returned with it. On the morning in question, however, as Maj. Pagebrook was riding over his plantation, inspecting work, he met a neighbor who was going to the Court House, and having some small matters to attend to there he determined to join the neighbor in his ride. Upon his arrival he called for his letters, and so it came about that the note in which Messrs. Steel, Flint & Sharp, "begged to inform him" of Robert's arrest in accordance with his instructions, fell into his hands. At first he was puzzled, and thought there must have been some mistake, but after awhile a glimmering of the truth dawned upon him, and in his smothered way he was exceedingly angry. He had condemned Robert's misconduct as severely as anybody, but had never dreamed of proceeding to harsh measures in the matter. Besides, it was only the day before that Robert's remittance of one hundred dollars had come to him, and, in acknowledging its receipt, he had partially satisfied his resentment by telling his cousin "what he thought of him," and to learn now that the young man was in jail for the fault, and apparently at his behest, was sorely displeasing to him. And worse than all, his wife had taken an unwarrantable liberty in the affair, and this he determined to resent. He mounted his horse, therefore, and was on the point of starting homeward when Dr. Harrison accosted him.