'Not dead yet. I hope not.' George began to open the letters, regardless of the surly and disrespectful words. One may forgive a good deal to fidelity. 'He will go on for a good many years after we have got the money back for him.'
'After some of us'—Checkley corrected him—'have got his money back for him.' He turned to go back to his own office, then turned again and came back to the table. He laid both hands upon it, leaned forward, shaking his head, and said with trembling voice: 'Did you never think, Mr. Austin, of the black ingratitood of the thing? Him that done it you know—him that eat his bread and took his money.' When Checkley was greatly moved, his grammar went back to the early days before he was confidential clerk.
'I daresay it was ungrateful. I have been thinking, hitherto, of stronger adjectives.'
'Well—we've agreed—all of us—haven't we?—that it was done in this office—some one in the office done it with the help of some one out: some one who knows his ways'—he pointed to the empty chair—'some one who'd known all his ways for a long time, ten years at least.'
'Things certainly seem to point that way'—'and they point to you,' he would have added, but refrained.
The old man shook his head again and went on. 'They've eaten his bread and done his work; and—and—don't you call it, Mr. Austin—I ask you plain—don't you call it black ingratitood?'
'I am sure it is. I have no doubt whatever about the ingratitude. But, you see, Checkley, that vice is not one which the Courts recognise. It is not one denounced in the Decalogue.—There is a good deal to consider, in fact, before we get to the ingratitude. It is probably a criminal conspiracy; it is a felony; it is a thing to be punished by a long term of penal servitude. When we have worried through all this and got our conspirators under lock and key, we will proceed to consider their ingratitude. There is also the bad form of it and the absence of proper feeling of it; and the want of consideration of the trouble they give. Patience! We shall have to consider the business from your point of view presently.'
'I wouldn't scoff and snigger at it, Mr. Austin, if I were you. Scoffin' and sniggerin' might bring bad luck. Because, you know, there's others besides yourself determined to bring this thing to a right issue.'
George put down his papers and looked at this importunate person. What did he mean? The old man shrunk and shrivelled and grew small. He trembled all over. But he remained standing with his hands on the table—leaning forward. 'Eight years ago,' he went on, 'when that other business happened—when Mr. Arundel cut his lucky——'
'I will have nothing said against Mr. Arundel. Go to your own room.'