Mr. Bates' son
has bin and got himself into such a mess over a horse-racing
transaction that he's had to make a bolt of it. I can't tell you the
facts, because I don't rightly know them; but it's bad--something to
do with checks that'll put him to hidin' for a long day, if he doesn't
want to answer for it in a court o' law. Well, then, the old gentleman
being worn out with private care, wishful to retire, and seeing a
common cheat and waster in the one who ought by nature to succeed
him, has offered me to take over the farm, the trade, an' the whole
bag of tricks."
"But, surely to goodness, Will, you don't think of giving up the post
office?"
"Yes, I do. I think of that, in any case."
"But you love the work."
"Used to, Mavis."
"Don't you now?"
"No. Mavis, it's like this." He had raised a hand to shade his eyes,
as if the lamplight hurt them, and she could no longer see the
expression of his face. But she observed a sudden change in his
manner. He spoke now much in the same confidential tone that he had
always employed in the old time when telling her of his most intimate
affairs--in the happy time when he brought all his little troubles to
her, and flattered her by saying that she never failed to make them
easy to bear.
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