"I put my life in your hands that night, Jason," he said simply. "Go on.
What is it?"
"Yes, sir. Thank you, Master Jim, sir." Jason swallowed hard; his voice
choked a little. "It isn't much, sir, I--I don't know that it's anything
at all; but nights, sir, when I'm sitting up for you, Master Jim, and
you don't come home, I--"
"But I've told you again and again that you are not to sit up for me,
Jason," Jimmie Dale remonstrated kindly.
"Yes, I know, sir." Jason shook his head. "But I couldn't sleep, sir,
anyway--thinking about it, Master Jim, sir. I--well, sir--sometimes I
get terribly anxious and afraid, Master Jim, that something will
happen to you, and it seems as though you were all alone in this, and
I thought, sir, that perhaps if--if some one--some one you could
trust, Master Jim, could do something--_anything_, sir, it might make
it all right. I--I'm an old man, Master Jim, it--it wouldn't matter
about me, and--"
Jimmie Dale turned abruptly to the table. His own eyes were wet. These
were not idle words that Jason used, or words spoken without a full
realisation of their meaning. Jason was offering, and calling it
presumption to do so, his life in place of his, Jimmie Dale's, if by so
doing he could shield the master whom he loved.
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