Mr. Pitt looked up quickly, and then looked down. There was something in the hard, furrowed countenance of Josiah that suggested a mental dry heat or dry cold,--any force in fact, that may be known to absorb or disperse particles of generous sentiment. Yet Pitt was not a coward, and though he stood in wholesome awe of the captious moods and whims of the great millionaire upon whom his own existence and that of his family depended, he determined not to relinquish the errand on which he was bound without a struggle. “Well, sir,” he resumed, in accents rendered firm by a kind of inward desperation, “whether you are interested or not, I think it my duty to tell you that Willie Dove,--the man who through his energy, fidelity and tact, helped to establish the firm, is now lying seriously ill. He is nearly sixty years old, and having a large family to provide for, had been unable to put by anything for his own rainy day----” “He should not have had a large family,”--interpolated McNason, stretching out his lean ill-shaped legs more comfortably in front of the fire--“it’s quite his own fault!” “Perhaps,” proceeded Pitt, with considerable emphasis, “if he had been less honest and high-principled in his business connection with us, he might have been more well-to-do in his own affairs. But, as matters stand, his position is a sad one. He is afflicted with a painful disease, which, however, can be absolutely cured by an immediate surgical operation. The doctors assure him that he will be well and strong enough to live out his full measure of years comfortably and usefully if he will only submit to their treatment----” “Well, if he wants to live, why doesn’t he?” inquired McNason, lazily. “Simply because he can’t afford it,” replied Pitt, bluntly. The great millionaire took up a poker, and looking critically at the fire, broke a large gaseous lump of coal into a bright blaze. “Oh! Well, that settles it,” he said. “Then I suppose he must, as the common folk say, ‘go home’!” A sparkle of indignation lightened Mr. Pitt’s quiet grey eyes. But he restrained his feelings. “The operation fee would be a hundred guineas,” he went on in a calm business-like tone--“Good nursing and a change of air would perhaps run into a hundred more. Say two hundred pounds. That sum would save his life.” “I daresay!” And McNason’s thin lips widened into a grin--“But if he hasn’t got the two hundred, he must accept the inevitable. After all, when a man is nearly sixty, a few years more or less in the world doesn’t matter!” Mr. Pitt looked at his employer steadily. “Have you any cause of complaint or offence against Dove, sir?” McNason met his inquiring eyes with his own special gimlet glance, sharp as the point of a screw. “None! Not the least in the world! Why should I? I scarcely remember the man!”