“How intent that man is on his business!” said Mrs. Sydney to Mr. Bernard. “I suppose his office is a very important one.” “Very important indeed. The quality of the iron produced by this furnace depends mainly on his care. It may be, and often is, ruined without his being able to help it or even knowing why; but it would certainly be spoiled without incessant care on his part. “Is it from pure fear of spoiling his work that he is so engrossed with it, or are his wages regulated by the produce of the furnace?” “We find so much depends on the care of the men who break the limestone and prepare the coke, and burn the mine, and fill and keep the furnace, that they are all paid by the ton of iron produced, in order to secure their mutual help and the proper regulation of the whole.” “Well, I should be sorry if this man should suffer by the carelessness of any of the people overhead; for I never saw any thing more perfect than his own attention.” “He is an extraordinary man,” said Mr. Wallace, who stood within hearing. “I cannot discover the motive to such indefatigable industry and frugality as his. He has worked his way up in a few months from being one of our lowest order of labourers to his present situation. He was a beggar when we first set him to work in excavating the tunnel; and he looks like a beggar still, though he accomplishes more work and lays by more money than any man among our people.” “I wondered to see him so ill-dressed,” observed Mr. Bernard. “I told him yesterday,” said Mr. Wallace, “that I expected to see him decently clothed, knowing, as I did, that he earned a great deal of money, and laid it all by in the Monmouth Savings Bank, except what is barely sufficient to procure him shelter and daily food.” “Has he neither wife nor family to support?” “He seems not to have a relation or acquaintance in the world. He speaks to nobody but the overlooker and myself.” “And what sort of intercourse have you with him?” “I converse with him as often as we can both spare time, and always with pleasure; for he is well, I might say highly, educated, and has the speech and manners of a gentleman.” “How strange! And do not you know where he comes from, and what brought him?” “I know nothing of him but that he is a genius and a miser—two characters which are rarely seen united. Paul keeps his own counsel so perfectly as to who he is and whence he comes, that my curiosity is very strongly excited, and I would take some pains to get at the bottom of the mystery, if I did not feel that every man has a right to his own secret. He is an industrious and faithful servant to me, and that is all I have any business with.” Mrs. Sydney ventured so far as to put a question to Paul; but he was just going to tap the furnace, i. e. to let out the fused iron,—a very important operation,—and was therefore too busy to answer her.