"Is it possible? What are we all coming to? You will soon have to stoop to take my arm—if you ever condescend to take my arm."
"No," she denied encouragingly, "I am not so far above your shoulder now," measuring the distance with a critical eye. "I shall not grow so much as that comes to. You are bigger than father, and you would not call him a little man; you are hardly even short."
"Thanks, you are too kind," said Tom Robinson, with the utmost gravity. "But I say, Miss May, if I were you, I don't think I should do anything to vex and thwart Dr. Millar, though he is so strong and active—long may he continue so. You know how disappointed he would be if you were to close your books."
"I am afraid he would," said May reluctantly. "I had almost forgotten all about it for the last minute or two. But don't you think if you spoke to him as I came to ask if you would," she continued unblushingly and coaxingly, "if you were to try and show him—it would be so kind of you—how comfortable and happy I should be with Phyllis Carey in your shop—doing my best—indeed, I should try hard to please you and Miss Franklin, all day—and getting home every evening—he might change his mind?"
"No, he would not," said Tom with conviction; "and what is more, he ought not. He would never cease to regret his shattered hopes for you—which, remember, you would have shattered—and your spoilt life."
"But your life is not spoilt?" she said wistfully, unable to resign her last hope.
"How can you tell?" he said, with a slight sharpness in his accent. Then he added quickly, "No, for I am a born shopkeeper in another sense than because I am one of a nation of shopkeepers."
He gave himself a reassuring shake, and resumed briskly—"I crave leave to say, Miss May, that I actually enjoy making up accounts, turning over samples, and giving orders. Sometimes I hit on a good idea which the commercial world acknowledges, and then I am as proud as if I had unearthed an ancient manuscript, or found the philosopher's stone. I pulled a fellow through a difficulty the other day, and it felt like taking part in an exciting fight. I have speculated occasionally when I was fishing—paying myself a huge compliment, no doubt—whether old Izaak Walton felt like me about trade."
"Was he in trade?" inquired May, with some surprise. "I know he wrote The Complete Angler, and was a friend of Dr. Donne's and George Herbert's, and is very much thought of to this day."
"Deservedly," said Tom Robinson emphatically. "Yes, I am proud to say, he was a hosier to begin with, and a linen-draper to end with—well-to-do in both lines. They say his first wife, whom he married while he was still in business, was a niece of the Archbishop of Canterbury of the day, and his second wife, whom he married after he had retired to live on his earnings, was a half-sister of good Bishop Ken's; but I do not pretend to vouch for the truth of these statements. Now, about your father. I cannot do what you ask—I cannot in conscience. Will you ever forgive me, 'little May'—that is what your father and mother and your sisters call you sometimes to this day, ain't it? and it is what I should have called you if I had been—your uncle say? Shall we be no longer friends?" he demanded ruefully.