"Not likely, master! Didn't the pore feller make a shift to get over here a'ter work hours--took a night-turn all the way from Camden Road goods station--so they told me--just for to hear the end of the story? And the follerin' night? So they _said_, and I'm tellin' ye all I know. In coorse, I never seen him, myself!" "No--of course you could not." Lady Arkroyd's pity for Jim's blindness, which _his_ speech ignored, is mistaken by him for regret at the stringency of visiting regulations. The feeling of compassion in her voice seems to him only man's natural resentment against rules, interpreted by womanly sensibility. "I'll see him one o' these days, lady," Jim says consolatorily. Of course, he means in the days of the wooden leg to come, if not sooner. Her ladyship, still conscious of the desirability of a religious atmosphere, has some vague impression that Mr. Taylor has been guaranteeing Jim eyesight on a cloud, through the whole of an exasperating Sunday lasting for ever; and she makes up her mind Jim could be read to out of the Bible with advantage, and of course there were any number of people ready to do this sort of thing. She will inquire about that. But Jim had really wanted to change the conversation to a subject nearer his heart. "My little lass, lady!" he said. "You seen the lass once, round to the Schoolhouse. Happen you might see her again?" "If I see Miss Fossett, Coupland, I shall certainly ask her to point out your little girl. She may not be there, you know." "That's so, lady. But supposin'! Any guess thing you might speak about, ye know. So I was just thinkin', if you was to be so very kind as to bear in mind...." "Yes. Indeed I will, Coupland. Is there something you wish I should say?" "Well, lady, yes! And be very thankful to ye! Would ye be so very kind as just say to her ... from her Daddy, ye know ... nothing at all about any sort of an ill-convenience come of this here accident. Just make it easy, like ... for she's but young, ye'll understand...." "Jim means ... I know, Jim"--for Jim seemed about to interrupt the Rev. Athelstan--"he means he wants Lizarann to think the accident a slight one." "Right you are, master!" Jim is much relieved, and his interpreter continues: "So he wants her to know as little as possible till he can walk about and make the least of it." "Oh yes! I quite understand that. I'll be very careful and discreet." "Not for to let on, anyways, about her Daddy being a fut the less!" Jim's relief is enormous at the completeness of the understanding. The conversation ran on, on such general lines as the diet of hospital life--highly approved of--the sanguineness of the head-surgeon that Jim would make a record in recovery, and the peculiarly small amount of inconvenience endured (if the truth were known) by the wearers of wooden legs. Jim was very cheerful about this. "Bob Steptoe, he'll lose a good half o' my custom," said he, immensely amused.