“Well, I don’t want to serve the writ upon him; I won’t serve it unless he makes me, by throwing himself within length of my arm. If he sees me coming up one street, let him cut down another; into a shop; anywhere; I have eyes that only see when I want them to. I come prowling about here once or twice a day for show, but I come at a time when I am pretty sure he can’t be seen; just gone out, or just gone in. I’d rather not harm him.” “You are not so considerate to all,” said Arthur, after a pause given to revolving the words, and to wondering whether they were spoken in good faith, or with some concealed purpose. He could not decide which. “No, I am not,” pointedly returned Hopper, in answer. “There are some that I look after, sharp as a ferret looks after a rat, but I’ll never do that by any son of Mr. Channing’s. I can’t forget the old days, sir, when your father was kind to me. He stood by me longer than my own friends did. But for him, I should have starved in that long illness I had, when the office would have me no longer. Why doesn’t Mr. Hamish settle this?” he abruptly added. “I suppose he cannot,” answered Arthur. “It is only a bagatelle at the worst, and our folks would not have gone to extremities if he had shown only a disposition to settle. I am sure that if he would go to them now, and pay down a ten-pound note, and say, ‘You shall have the rest as I can get it,’ they’d withdraw proceedings; ay, even for five pounds I believe they would. Tell him to do it, Mr. Arthur; tell him I always know which way the wind blows with our people.” “I will tell him, but I fear he is very short of money just now. Five or ten pounds may be as impossible to find, sometimes, as five or ten thousand.” “Better find it than be locked up,” said Hopper. “How would the office get on? Deprive him of the power of management, and it might cost Mr. Channing his place. What use is a man when he is in prison? I was in Mr. Channing’s office for ten years, Mr. Arthur, and I know every trick and turn in it, though I have left it a good while. And now that I have just said this, I’ll go on my way. Mind you tell him.” “Thank you,” warmly replied Arthur. “And when you have told him, please to forget that you have heard it. There’s somebody’s eyes peering at me over the deanery blinds. They may peer! I don’t mind them; deaneries don’t trouble themselves with sheriff’s officers.” He glided away, and Arthur went straight to the office. Hamish was alone; he was seated at Jenkins’s desk, writing a note. “You here still, Hamish! Where’s Yorke?” “Echo answers where,” replied Hamish, who appeared to have recovered his full flow of spirits. “I have seen nothing of him.” “That’s Yorke all over! it is too bad.” “It would be, were this a busy afternoon with me. But what brings you back, Mr. Arthur? Have you left the organ to play itself?”