“Robbing me?”
“Well, not exactly of money in hard cash, but of your time, which is just the same. Time’s money. Always an hour late.”
Van Heldre turned upon him fiercely. “Crampton, can you let your prejudice go so far as to suspect that young man?”
“Yes, sir. I can... Suspect? No, I am sure. I doubted him from the first.”
“It is monstrous. You were unjust to him from the first.”
“I, sir?”
“Yes. But then how can a man who has never had a child be just to the weaknesses of the young?”
“I can be just, sir, and I have been. You don’t know the supercilious way in which that boy treated me from the day he entered our office. Always late, and as soon as he was settled down to his work, in must come that scoundrel with the French name to ask for him, and get him away. Why, Mr Van Heldre, sir, if I hadn’t been a law-abiding subject of her most gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, I’d have knocked that man down.”
“Pish!” said Van Heldre impatiently, as he lay back frowning, and looking very thoughtful. “I am sorry that you should have entertained such a suspicion about the son of my old friend.”
“Ah!” sighed Crampton. “Poor Mr Vine! It’s heart-breaking work, sir. It is, indeed.”