"
Roland stared with all his eyes. "I say, Jenkins, what do you mean? You
have nothing serious the matter with you?"
"No, sir; nothing but the cough, and a weakness that I feel. My mother
and brother both died of the same thing, sir."
"Oh, nonsense!" returned Roland. "Because one's mother dies, is that
any reason why we should fall into low spirits and take up the notion
that we are going to die, and look out for it? I am surprised at you,
Jenkins."
"I am not in low spirits, sir; and I am sure I do not look out for it.
I might have looked out for it any autumn or any spring of late, had I
been that way inclined, for I have had the cough at those periods, as
you know, sir. There's a difference, Mr. Roland, between looking out
for a thing, and not shutting one's eyes to what may come."
"I say, old fellow, you just put all such notions away from you"--and
Roland really meant to speak in a kindly, cheering spirit. "My father
died of dropsy; and I may just as well set on, and poke and pat at
myself every other morning, to see if it's not attacking me. Only think
what would become of this office without you! Galloway would fret and
fume himself into his tomb at having nobody but me in it."
A smile crossed Jenkins's face at the idea of the office, confided to
the management of Roland Yorke. Poor Jenkins was one of the doubtful
ones, from a sanitary point of view. Always shadowy, as if a wind would
blow him away, and, for some years, suffering much from a cough, which
only disappeared in summer, he could not, and did not, count upon a
long life.
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