She had made him the handsome present of
twenty-five pounds, for he had been a most excellent servant to her late
husband. And she had done more than that. She had gone to a good deal of
trouble to procure him an exceptionally good situation. Piper had just
gone there, and she hoped, rather anxiously, that he would do well in it.
The man had one serious fault--now and again he would go off and have a
good "drunk." Sometimes he wouldn't do this foolish, stupid thing for
months, and then, perchance, he would do it two weeks running! Colonel
Crofton, so hard in many ways, had been indulgent to this one fault, or
vice, in an otherwise almost perfect servant. When giving Piper a very
high character Mrs. Crofton had just hinted that there had been a time
when he had taken a drop too much, but she had spoken of it as being
absolutely in the past. Being the kind of woman she was, she wouldn't
have said even that, had it not been that Piper had got disgracefully
drunk within a week of his master's death. She had been very much
frightened then, though not too frightened to stay, herself, within
hail of the man till he had come round, and to make him a cup of strong
coffee.
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