“Sure! I am sure they did not, unless I dropped asleep. That was not an unlikely catastrophe to happen; shut up by myself in that dull office, amidst musty parchments, with nothing to do.”
“Hamish, can you be serious for once? This is a serious matter.”
“Mr. Martin Pope wants you, sir,” said the clerk again, interrupting at this juncture. Martin Pope’s face came in also, over the clerk’s shoulder. It was red, and he looked in a hurry.
“Hamish, he has had a letter, and is off by the half-past eleven train,” spoke Martin Pope, in some excitement. “You must rush up to the station, if you want a last word with him. You will hardly catch him, running your best.”
Up jumped Hamish, in excitement as great as his friend’s. He closed and locked the desk, caught his hat, and was speeding out of the office, when Arthur, to whom the words had been a puzzle, seized his arm.
“Hamish, did any one come in? It was Mr. Galloway sent me here to ascertain.”
“No, they did not. Should I not tell you if they had? Take care, Arthur. I must fly like the wind. Come away, Pope!”
Arthur walked back to Mr. Galloway’s. That gentleman was out. Roland Yorke was out. But Jenkins, upon whom the unfortunate affair had taken great hold, lifted his face to Arthur, his eyes asking the question that his tongue scarcely presumed to do.
“My brother says no one came in while he was here. It is very strange!”
“Mr. Arthur, sir, if I had repined at all at that accident, and felt it as a misfortune, how this would have reproved me!” spoke Jenkins, in his simple faith. “Why, sir, it must have come to me as a mercy, a blessing; to take me away out of this office at the very time.”