"Certainly, Livesey; what is it?"
"When you were writing for me, you put something about a sovereign in the letter. I wanted to tell you how I came by it. It's hardly mine, like, now;" and in a few words, Adam explained why such an unwonted sum was in his keeping.
For a moment, Mr. Drummond was puzzled to understand why Adam had deemed such an explanation necessary. Then it flashed upon him that he had hunted for the threepenny piece, and spoken of it as if it were all the money he possessed, though he had alluded in his letter to the unbroken sovereign. He was afraid that Mr. Drummond might think him wanting in straightforwardness, and could not rest till the matter was cleared up.
The manager was pleased, but frankly owned that he had noticed that which had troubled Adam. Then he added, "I was glad to see you at the Mission Room on Monday. I hoped you would like the service well enough to come again."
"I want to do, sir, and now the letter to Maggie is mostly off my mind, I'm hoping I shall be in time to-night. I should ha' gone last night, only there's a young woman doing for us all while Margaret's away, and she's fond o' preachin's and such-like, so I thought she ought to have her turn. I might ha' left that little lass of mine to look after the lesser ones, but she has her bits o' lessons to learn, and it's no good loadin' 'em too heavy, poor things! They can only be young once."
Adam was astonished at himself that he could talk "so free like" to the manager, and Mr. Drummond was pleased to see that the ice between them, once broken, was not likely to close over again.
"You were quite right, Adam. The little ones often have too much to bear, and are made to grow old too soon. I am glad that you want to save yours as far as you can. I respect you more for staying away than I should have done for coming last night. But I shall look for you again this evening."
With a kindly nod, the manager went homewards, and Adam, watching him till he was out of sight, said to himself, "Here now is something else to thank God for. He must ha' made Mr. Drummond so kind to me, for I've done nothing myself."
Truly, many a mere man of the world may feel inclined to scoff at this simple account of the manager's intercourse with Adam Livesey, and say, "How unlikely that a person in such a position of authority would trouble himself about one filling so low a place as that of the striker! To a gentleman acting as the head and manager of a great concern employing many hundreds of hands, what would one humble labourer be but an item in the mass of human machines moving like clockwork around him?"
Probably in many such places, the humbler toilers are never noticed, could not even be known by name or sight to those so far above them.