with sippets of toast in it, which he had assured
Miss Deb was a sovereign specific, though it might not be generally
known, to keep off the sickness.

"Jan," said Lionel, going straight up, and grasping him by the hand;
"what am I to say to you? I did not know, until ten minutes ago, what it
is that you are doing for me."

Jan put down a pill-box he held, and looked at Lionel. "What am I doing
for you?" he asked.

"I speak of this money that I find you have handed to my mother. Of the
money you have undertaken to hand to her."

"Law, is that all?" said Jan, taking up the pill-box again, and biting
one of the pills in two to test its quality. "I thought you were going
to tell me I had sent you poison, or something; coming in like that."

"Jan, I can never repay you. The money I may, some time; I hope I shall:
the debt of gratitude, never."

"There's nothing to repay," returned Jan, with composure. "As long as I
have meat and drink and clothes, what do I want with extra money? You
are heartily welcome to it, Lionel."

"You are working your days away, Jan, and for no benefit to yourself. I
am reaping it."

"A man can but work," responded Jan. "I like work, for my part; I
wouldn't be without it. If old West came home and said he'd take all the
patients for a week, and give me a holiday, I should only set on and
pound. Look here," pointing to the array on the counter, "I have done
more work in two hours than Cheese gets through in a week."

Lionel could not help smiling. Jan went on--

"I don't work for the sake of accumulating money, but because work is
life's business, and I like work for its own sake. If I got no money by
it, I should work. Don't think about the money, Lionel. While it lay in
that bank where was the use of it? Better for my mother to have it, than
for me to be hoarding it."

"Jan, did it never strike you that it might be well to make some
provision for contingencies? Old age, say; or sudden deprivation of
strength, through accident or other cause? If you give away all you
might save for yourself, what should you do were the evil day to come?"

Jan looked at his arms. "I am tolerably strong," said he; "feel me. My
head's all right, and my limbs are all right. If I should be deprived of
strength before my time, I dare say, God, in taking it, would find some
means just to keep me from want."

The answer was delivered in the most straightforward simplicity. Lionel
looked at him until his eye