“Thank you,” emphatically replied Mr. Galloway. “It will relieve me from a serious embarrassment.”
Arthur went to his old desk, and sat down on his old stool, and began settling the papers and other things on it, just as though he had not been absent an hour. “I must still attend the cathedral as usual, sir,” he observed to Mr. Galloway; “but I can give you the whole of my remaining time. I shall be better for you than no one.”
“I would rather have you here than any one else, Channing; he”—laying his hand on Jenkins’s shoulder—“excepted. I offered that you should return before.”
“I know you did, sir,” replied Arthur, in a brief tone—one that seemed to intimate he would prefer not to pursue the subject.
“And now are you satisfied?” struck in Mrs. Jenkins to her husband.
“I am more than satisfied,” answered Jenkins, clasping his hands. “With Mr. Arthur in the office, I shall have no fear of its missing me, and I can go home in peace, to die.”
“Please just to hold your tongue about dying,” reprimanded Mrs. Jenkins. “Your business is to get well, if you can. And now I am going to see after a fly. A pretty dance I should have had here, if he had persisted in stopping, bringing him messes and cordials every half-hour! Which would have worn out first, I wonder—the pavement or my shoes?”
“Channing,” said Mr. Galloway, “let us understand each other. Have you come here to do anything there may be to do—out of doors as well as in? In short, to be my clerk as heretofore?”
“Of course I have, sir; until”—Arthur spoke very distinctly—“you shall be able to suit yourself; not longer.”
“Then take this paper round to Deering’s office, and get it signed. You will have time to do it before college.”