He was a married man and did not
keep his wife and children in absolute comfort; but they lived, and
Mr. Nickem in some fashion paid his way.
There was another clerk in the office, a very much younger man,
named Sundown, and Nickem could not make his proposition to Mr.
Masters till Sundown had left the office. Nickem himself had only
matured his plans at dinner time and was obliged to be reticent,
till at six o'clock Sundown took himself off. Mr. Masters was, at
the moment, locking his own desk, when Nickem winked at him to
stay. Mr. Masters did stay, and Sundown did at last leave the
office.
"You couldn't let me leave home for three days?" said Nickem.
"There ain't much a doing."
"What do you want it for?"
"That Goarly is a great blackguard, Mr. Masters."
"Very likely. Do you know anything about him?"
Nickem scratched his head and rubbed his chin. "I think I could
manage to know something."
"In what way?"
"I don't think I'm quite prepared to say, sir. I shouldn't use your
name of course. But they're down upon Lord Rufford, and if you
could lend me a trifle of 30s., sir, I think I could get to the
bottom of it. His lordship would be awful obliged to any one who
could hit it off"
Mr. Masters did give his clerk leave for three days, and did
advance him the required money. And when he suggested in a whisper
that perhaps the circumstance need not be mentioned to Mrs.
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