Failing, of course, some quite gratuitous and
unforeseeable catastrophe.
Not that he was not human, or even incapable of laughter or passion.
He was, in a way, immensely accessible. He never clapped one on the
shoulder; on the other hand, he never failed to speak. Not even to
Boaz.
Returning from the bank in the afternoon, he had always a word for
the cobbler. Passing out again to supper at his boarding-place, he
had another, about the weather, the prospects of rain. And if Boaz
were at work in the dark when he returned from an evening at the
Board of Trade, there was a "Good night, Mr. Negro!"
On Boaz's part, his attitude toward his lodger was curious and
paradoxical. He did not pretend to anything less than reverence for
the young man's position; precisely on account of that position he
was conscious toward Wood of a vague distrust. This was because he
was an uneducated fellow.
To the uneducated the idea of large finance is as uncomfortable as
the idea of the law. It must be said for Boaz that, responsive to
Wood's unfailing civility, he fought against this sensation of dim
and somehow shameful distrust.
Nevertheless his whole parental soul was in arms that evening, when,
returning from the bank and finding the shop empty of loungers, Wood
paused a moment to propose the bit of advice already referred to.
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