Then Hogstaff came in, and fussed about, and Sir Cradock was fain to find fault with him.
“How careless you are getting about the letters, Hogstaff. Later and later every morning! What is the reason that you never now bring me the bag at the proper time?”
It was very strange, no doubt, of Job Hogstaff, but he could not bear to be found fault with; and now he saw his way to a little triumph, and resolved to make the most of it.
“Yes, Sir Cradock; to be sure, Sir Cradock; how my old head is failing me! Very neglectful of me never to have brought the bag to–day.” Then he turned round suddenly at the door, to which he had been hobbling. “Perhaps youʼd look at the date, Sir Cradock, of the paper in your hand, sir.”
“Yesterdayʼs paper, of course, Hogstaff. What has that to do with it?”
“Oh, nothing, sir, nothing, of course. Only I thought it might have comed in the letter–bag. Perhaps it never does, Sir Cradock; you knows best, as you takes it out.” Here old Job gave a quiet chuckle, and added, as if to himself, “No, of course, it couldnʼt have come in the letter–bag this morning, or master would never have blowed me up for not bringing him the bag, as nobody else got a key to it!”
“How stupid of me, to be sure, how excessively stupid!” exclaimed Sir Cradock, with a sigh; “of course I had the bag, a full hour ago; and there was nothing in it but this paper. Job, I beg your pardon.”
“And I hope itʼs good news youʼve got there, Sir Cradock, and no cases of starvation; no one found dead in the streets, I hopes, or drownded in the Serpentine. Anyhow, thereʼs a many births, I see, and a deal too many. Children be now such a plenty nobody care about them.”
“Job, you quite forget yourself,” said his master, very grandly; but there came a long sigh after it, and Job was not daunted easily.