“If we had only been here last night,” he sobbed at length, “we might have saved them.”
“So we might, so we might, Tommy; who knows? Some one should have been here anyhow. It seems to me that things ain’t well managed in these days. They haven’t half enough of appliances to save life, that’s a fact.”
Bax said this somewhat sternly.
“Whose fault is it, Bax?” said Tommy, looking up in his friend’s face.
“Ha, Tommy,” replied the other with a smile, “it don’t become the like o’ you or me to say who’s to blame. You’re too young to understand the outs and ins o’ such matters, and I’m too ignorant.”
The boy smiled incredulously. The idea of Bax being “ignorant” was too gross and absurd to be entertained for a moment, even although stated by himself.
“Well, but,” urged Tommy stoutly, “if things are wrong, it’s clear that they ain’t right, and surely I’ve a right to say so.”
“True, lad, true,” returned Bax, with an approving nod; “that’s just the point which I’d like you and me to stick to: when we see things to be wrong don’t let’s shirk sayin’ so as flat as we can; but don’t let us go, like too many shallow-pates, and say that we know who’s wrong and why they’re wrong, and offer to put them all right on the shortest notice. Mayhap” (here Bax spoke in a soft meditative tone, as if he had forgotten his young friend, and were only thinking aloud) “mayhap we may come to understand the matter one of these days, and have a better right to speak out—who knows?”
“That I’m certain of!” cried Tommy, in a tone and with an air that made Bax smile despite the sad sight before him.
“Come, lad,” he said, with sudden energy, “we must get ’em removed. Away! and fetch a couple of men. I’ll arrange them.”