“Ay, John,” Sarah said, with a softening of her voice, “I ain’t likely to forget that while I live. Well, John, I’ve been as happy as I hoped to be.” “Ay, mother,” John said, “we’ve had no cause to grumble. If we ain’t done quite so well as we hoped then, Sairey, we’ve done as well as we could have fairly expected. Well, here we are; and I’m blest if there ain’t all the carts with their new name on them, ‘John Holl, dust contractor.’ It don’t look bad,” he said, critically, as he spelt the letters out slowly. “I wonder what the new gaffer’s like.” “Well, John,” his old master said, coming out of the house into the yard, “come to square up, eh? How are you, Mrs. Holl?” and he went into a little outhouse, and paid John Holl his wages up to the preceding night. “Now, John, I will take you indoors to the new master.” At the door, however, John and his wife were surprised to meet Mr. Prescott. “Ah, Mr. Holl, how are you? How are you, Mrs. Holl? Had a little business here, too, you see. Come in,” and he led the way into a neat little parlour, the former master remaining outside. “Hullo,” John exclaimed, in utter astonishment, when, upon entering, he saw the cripple boy sitting by the fireside in the very box in which he had sat so many years by their own hearth, and which, on coming out, they had left in the spot where it had so long stood. “Yes, father, it’s me, sure enough. Well, mother, how goes it? You see I came down here with Mr. Prescott.” Sarah kissed her foster son tenderly, and John Holl shook him by the hand. “But where,” John said, looking round uneasily, “is the new gaffer?” “He’ll be here presently, father, sit you down—sit down, mother.” “Yes, my boy, but the master mightn’t like it if he came in here and found us making so free.” “You sit down, mother, the new master won’t mind it. He’s a good fellow, is the new master, ain’t he, Mr. Prescott?” “He is, indeed,” Prescott said, warmly, “a right good fellow.” “So good a fellow, mother, that when he was a young man, and not long married, he took a poor boy out of the streets and brought him up.” “Did he really though?” Sarah said. “Ah, that’s why he wants to see us. He has heard about James turning out a gentleman, and he wonders whether his lad will do the same.” “Like enough, mother,” John said, “I wish he’d come though; for I can’t but feel as I’m intruding here.” “Don’t you be uneasy, father. I want to tell you about the new master, for I know you and mother will like him. His name, you know, is John Holl.” “Yes,” John said, “John Holl, dust contractor. It’s writ up on the carts, James.” “Just so, father, John Holl, dust contractor. Well, father, John Holl, when he was a young man, wasn’t a contractor at all, but just a dustman. When he had not been married long, he took a poor little baby whose mother had died—she was no relation to him, mother, none at all, just a poor creature without friends—and they took in the baby, and brought him up as their own.”