“Really,” said John, “I should have said that he ought to have told me.”

“Wa’al,” said Chet encouragingly, “mebbe you’ll git along somehow, though I’m ’fraid you’ll have more or less trouble; but I told Dave that as fur ’s I c’d see, mebbe you’d do ’s well ’s most anybody he c’d git that didn’t know any o’ the customers, an’ hadn’t never done any o’ this kind o’ work before.”

“Thank you very much,” said John.  “And so you are off to-morrow, are you?”

“Got to be,” declared Mr. Timson.  “I’d ‘a’ liked to stay with you a spell longer, but the’s a big concern f’m out of town that as soon as they heard I was at libe’ty wrote for me to come right along up, an’ I s’pose I hadn’t ought to keep ’em waitin’.”

“No, I should think not,” said John, “and I congratulate you upon having located yourself so quickly.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Timson, with ineffable complacency, “I hain’t give myself no worry; I hain’t lost no sleep.  I’ve allowed all along that Dave Harum’d find out that he wa’n’t the unly man that needed my kind o’ work, an’ I ain’t meanin’ any disrispect to you when I say ’t—­”

“Just so,” said John.  “I quite understand.  Nobody could expect to take just the place with him that you have filled.  And, by the way,” he added, “as you are going in the morning, and I may not see you again, would you kindly give me the last balance sheets of the two ledgers and the bill-book.  I suppose, of course, that they are brought down to the first of the month, and I shall want to have them.”

“Oh, yes, cert’nly, of course—­wa’al I guess Dave’s got ’em,” replied Chet, looking considerably disconcerted, “but I’ll look ’em up in the mornin’.  My train don’t go till ten o’clock, an’ I’ll see you ’bout any little last thing in the mornin’—­but I guess I’ve got to go now on account of a lot of things.  You c’n shut up, can’t ye?”

Whereupon Mr. Timson made his exit, and not long afterward David came in.  By that time everything had been put away, the safe and vault closed, and Peleg had departed with the mail and his freedom for the rest of the day.

“Wa’al,” said Mr. Harum, lifting himself to a seat on the counter, “how’ve you made out?  All O.K.?”

“Yes,” replied John, “I think so.”

“Where’s Chet?”

“He went away some few minutes ago.  He said he had a good many things to attend to as he was leaving in the morning.”

“E-um’m!” said David incredulously.  “I guess ’t won’t take him long to close up his matters.  Did he leave ev’rything in good shape?  Cash all right, an’ so on?”

“I think so,” said John.  “The cash is right I am sure.”

“How ’bout the books?”

“I asked him to let me have the balance sheets, and he said that you must have them, but that he would come in in the morning and—­well, what he said was that he would see me in the morning, and, as he put it, look after any little last thing.”