“If you please, sir,” he said bashfully, “Johnny True wants to know if you’ll be so good as to take me on in his place, considering that he isn’t coming back any more, and I have done errands before, and got good reference.”
He had made his little speech in breathless haste, running all his sentences together into one.
Tom looked at him deliberately, and lit a cigar.
“Johnny isn’t coming back, hey?”
“No, sir.”
“Where is Johnny gone?”
“He didn’t tell me, if you please, but he said he should be hurt to death if it troubled you to lose him, and he knew I could do as well as he could.”
I saw a refusal in Tom’s eyes, so I made haste to forestall it.
“Do take him,” I said in a low tone to Tom, and then I said to the boy that just now he had better go to the store, and Mr. May would see him presently, when he came to business.