"I've just seen Barlow," said Darius confidentially to Edwin. Barlow
was the baker. "He's been here afore his rounds. He's willing to
sublet me his storeroom--so that'll be all right! Eh?"
"Yes," said Edwin, seeing that his approval was being sought for.
"We must fix that machine plumb again."
"I suppose the floor's as firm as rocks now?" Edwin suggested.
"Eh! Bless ye! Yes!" said his father, with a trace of kindly
impatience.
The policy of makeshift was to continue. The floor having been stayed
with oak, the easiest thing and the least immediately expensive thing
was to leave matters as they were. When the baker's stores were cleared
from his warehouse, Darius could use the spaces between the pillars for
lumber of his own; and he could either knock an entrance-way through the
wall in the yard, or he could open the nailed-down trap door and patch
the ancient stairway within; or he could do nothing--it would only mean
walking out into Woodisun Bank and up the alley each time he wanted
access to his lumber!
And yet, after the second cracking sound on the previous day, he had
been ready to vow to rent an entirely new and common-sense printing
office somewhere else--if only he should be saved from disaster that
once! But he had not quite vowed. And, in any case, a vow to oneself
is not a vow to the Virgin. He had escaped from a danger, and the
recurrence of the particular danger was impossible. Why then commit
follies of prudence, when the existing arrangement of things `would do'?
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