"Perhaps I had better read a portion of a letter received by me yesterday from Miss Messenger. That portion which concerns you, Mr. Bunker, is as follows."
Rather a remarkable letter had been received at the brewery on the previous day from Miss Messenger. It was remarkable, and, indeed, disquieting, because it showed a disposition to interfere in the management of the great concern, and the interference of a young lady in the brewery boded ill.
The chief brewer and the chief accountant read it together. They were a grave and elderly pair, both in their sixties, who had been regarded by the late Mr. Messenger as mere boys. For he was in the eighties.
"Yes," said the chief brewer, as his colleague read the missive with a sigh, "I know what you would say. It is not the thing itself; the thing is a small thing; the man may even be worth his pay; but it is the spirit of the letter, the spirit, that concerns me."
"It is the spirit," echoed the chief accountant.
"Either," said the chief brewer, "we rule here, or we do not."
"Certainly," said the chief accountant, "and well put."
"If we do not"—here the chief brewer rapped the middle knuckle of the back of his left-hand forefinger with the tip of his right-hand forefinger—"if we do not, what then?"
They gazed upon each other for a moment in great sadness, having before their eyes a hazy vision in which Miss Messenger walked through the brewery, putting down the mighty and lowering salaries. A grateful reward for long and faithful services! At the thought of it, these two servants in their own eyes became patriarchal, as regards the length of years spent in the brewery, and their long services loomed before them as so devoted and so faithful as to place them above the rewarding power of any salary.