The 12.30 from Croydon Read Online Free PDF

in these days, that is.’
    ‘I asked you which was the better.’
    ‘Hornby’s better at the books. His posting’s neat and he doesn’t make mistakes, or not many of them anyhow. But Sutter’s the best man when it comes to handling anything out of the common. If you have a message up town you send Sutter.’
    Charles saw that he must get down to it. ‘The reason I ask you is that I’m afraid you’ll have to let one of them go.’
    Gairns was appalled. He blinked at his employer. ‘Let one of them go, sir? That wouldn’t be easy with all the work that has to be done.’ He could scarcely believe Charles was in earnest. There had always been the typist, the office boy, and two clerks, and to make so fundamental a change would alter the whole of the established routine.
    ‘I know it won’t be easy,’ Charles went on. ‘I hate to think of getting rid of either of them, for I know they’re both good men. But I’m afraid we can’t help ourselves. We simply can’t afford to go on as we are doing. We’ve got to save somewhere. You know as well as I do that every firm’s doing it.’
    The old man was actually trembling. Charles, who overlooked his annoying little ways in remembering his devoted service, was sorry for him.
    ‘We can’t help it, James,’ he said kindly. ‘You go off now and think how you’re going to manage with one clerk. There’s less correspondence now than there was and Miss Lillingstone can help with the books. And that boy Maxton can do more than he’s doing. Think which of those two you’d like to keep and let the other go. I don’t want him taken too short. You may give him a month’s notice.’
    Charles was a considerate employer and hated turning into the street a man who had served him well. But for some time the dwindling work had been forcing him to the conclusion that the office was overstaffed. The loss of the Brent Magnus job had simply brought the matter to a head.
    For Charles had no doubt of the truth of Gairns’s story. He had been afraid of that very thing happening, and he knew that the confidential clerk, Timothy Banks, was a highly reliable man.
    When Gairns left the office, the expression of worry and care settled down once again on Charles’s features. This hiding of his troubles from his staff and turning a smiling face to the world was a wearing business. And yet he must go through with it. He had a special reason why no whisper that all was not well in the Crowther Works must get abroad, an overwhelming, all-compelling reason. For Charles Swinburn was in love, desperately, consumingly in love. And he knew that Una Mellor would never marry a poor man.
    Six months previously Colonel Mellor had moved to Cold Pickerby, and a week later Charles and Una had met on the golf links. She played a good game and so did he, and the meeting was followed by others. For Charles it was love at first sight. Till then he had been comparatively free from attachments, and now when he caught the fever the attack was correspondingly severe. Una instantly saw what had happened – and laughed at him. But this, instead of cooling him, still further inflamed his passion, till the winning of the tantalizing young woman became the one thing he lived for. After weeks of discouragement he began to think he was making progress, and latterly he had been sure of it. But he knew that the mere suggestion of financial difficulty, not to mention bankruptcy, would remove her as far from his reach as if she lived in the moon.
    For some time Charles remained sitting motionless at his desk with bowed head and despondent features. Then with a half-shrug he rose, locked away his book, took his hat and went out.
    Though a big Scotsman named Macpherson served him in the nominal capacity of works manager and engineer, Charles was his own manager. The works were his hobby and his baby as well as the source of his income, and he enjoyed pottering about in them and watching what was going on. When work in