Jenkins coughed—more in hesitation for an answer, than of necessity. “I am beginning to think, sir, that I shall not get out again at all,” he presently said.
“Holloa! I say, Jenkins, don’t go and talk that rubbish!” was Roland’s reply. “You know what I told you once, about that dropsy. I heard of a man that took it into his head to fancy himself dead. And he ordered a coffin, and lay down in it, and stopped in it for six days, only getting up at night to steal the bread and cheese! His folks couldn’t think, at first, where the loaves went to. You’ll be fancying the same, if you don’t mind!”
“If I could only get a little stronger, sir, instead of weaker, I should soon be at my duty again. I am anxious enough sir, as you may imagine, for there’s my salary, sir, coming to me as usual, and I doing nothing for it.”
“It’s just this, Jenkins, that if you don’t come back speedily, I shall take French leave, and be off some fine morning. I can’t stand it much longer. I can’t tell you how many blessed hours at a stretch am I in that office with no one to speak to. I wish I was at Port Natal!”
“Sir,” said Jenkins, thinking he would say a word of warning, in his kindly spirit: “I have heard that there’s nothing more deceptive than those foreign parts that people flock to when the rage arises for them. Many a man only goes out to starve and die.”
“Many a muff, you mean!” returned self-complaisant Roland. “I say, Jenkins, isn’t it a shame about Arthur Channing? Galloway has his money back from the very thief himself, as the letter said, and yet the old grumbler won’t speak out like a man, and say, ‘Shake hands, old fellow,’ and ‘I know you are innocent, and come back to the office again.’ Arthur would return, if he said that. See if I don’t start for Port Natal!”
“I wish Mr. Arthur was back again, sir. It would make me easier.”
“He sits, and stews, and frets, and worries his brains about that office, and how it gets on without him!” tartly interposed Mrs. Jenkins. “A sick man can’t expect to grow better, if he is to fret himself into fiddlestrings!”
“I wish,” repeated poor Jenkins in a dreamy sort of mood, his eyes fixed on the fire, and his thin hands clasped upon his knees: “I do wish Mr. Arthur was back. In a little while he’d quite replace me, and I should not be missed.”
“Hear him!” uttered Mrs. Jenkins. “That’s how he goes on!”