Had to complain to Townes to-day about his half starving himself. He said that he'd had a good deal of expense lately, and money was a bit short, and he had to save where he could. I told him, as I've told him twenty times, not to act like a fool. If a man doesn't eat, he can't work. If a man is paid to work, and doesn't work, he's swindling his boss. As I'm here to see, amongst other things, that Townes doesn't swindle the governor, I had to make some sort of an arrangement with him. I've told him we'll settle about the interest later. Strictly speaking, I ought to make it pretty stiff, for Townes isn't Consols by a long way. Now I'll go off for a stroll and my evening pipe. Possibly I may look in at the lodge. In that case I think I'll leave the pipe till afterwards, as the child may not like it.
That brat of Townes' is better--ever so much better. In another week she'll be about, all over the place, and worrying the life out of me, same as usual. I did get a little peace and quietness when she was ill. Townes, of course, is as pleased as Punch, but I very soon knocked that out of him. I asked him how he thought he was going to support his children when they were a bit bigger on the wages that he got. I told him he was fit to be a head-gardener now, and asked him if he was content to be second all his life. He said, as things were at present, he didn't like to chuck a sure thing for what was only a chance. He's got no more enterprise than a dead dog. That's the curse of children. They hang round you like a dead weight, and you never get on at all. Thank Heaven, I've none of my own.
I will say this for myself, that I can generally foresee what's going to happen. I'm not one of those that has to look at a newspaper to know what the weather's going to be. It was the stables first, and then it was the house, and I said at the time it would be the garden next. The governor came along to me this morning with a sort of melancholy smile on his face, and talked to me just as openly and frankly as if I'd been a gentleman like himself.
"Adam," he said, "I've lost a lot of money lately. Been swindled out of it. I daresay you heard?"
"I'd heard nothing definite, sir. I'm sure I'm very sorry to hear it now."
