Then the man saw what it was, and he exclaimed quite ruefully: "I am very sorry—I am very sorry."
"You can't help it," meekly said Jones, "you must do your duty."
"Why that's what I always say," cried the bailiff with a second oath, rather bigger than the first, "a man must do his duty, mustn't he?" and a third oath slipped out.
"Don't swear, pray don't!" said Jones.
"And if I do, may I be—" here the swearing bailiff paused aghast at what he was going to add. "I can't help myself like," he said, rather ruefully, "it's second natur, you see, second natur. But I'll try and not do it—I'll try."
And speaking quite softly, spite of his swearing propensities, he looked wistfully at Jones; but the childless father's face remained a blank.
"Make yourself at home," he said in a subdued voice. "I think you'll find all you want in that cupboard, at least 'tis all I have."
And he resumed his place by the dead.
"All I want, and all you have," muttered the bailiff with his head in the cupboard. "Then faith, my poor fellow, 'tain't much."
The day was chill and very dreary; the bailiff smoked his pipe by the low smouldering fire, and yawned over a dirty old newspaper. Two hours had passed thus when Jones said to him: "You don't want for anything, do you?"