Paul took a seat.
Mr. Pappleworth was very close to him. The man seized the letters, snatched a long entry-book out of a rack in front of him, flung it open, seized a pen, and said:
“Now look here. You want to copy these letters in here.” He sniffed twice, gave a quick chew at his gum, stared fixedly at a letter, then went very still and absorbed, and wrote the entry rapidly, in a beautiful flourishing hand. He glanced quickly at Paul.
“See that?”
“Yes.”
“Think you can do it all right?”
“Yes.”
“All right then, let's see you.”
He sprang off his stool. Paul took a pen. Mr. Pappleworth disappeared. Paul rather liked copying the letters, but he wrote slowly, laboriously, and exceedingly badly. He was doing the fourth letter, and feeling quite busy and happy, when Mr. Pappleworth reappeared.
“Now then, how'r' yer getting on? Done 'em?”
He leaned over the boy's shoulder, chewing, and smelling of chlorodyne.
“Strike my bob, lad, but you're a beautiful writer!” he exclaimed satirically. “Ne'er mind, how many h'yer done? Only three! I'd 'a eaten 'em. Get on, my lad, an' put numbers on 'em. Here, look! Get on!”
Paul ground away at the letters, whilst Mr. Pappleworth fussed over various jobs. Suddenly the boy started as a shrill whistle sounded near his ear. Mr. Pappleworth came, took a plug out of a pipe, and said, in an amazingly cross and bossy voice:
“Yes?”
Paul heard a faint voice, like a woman's, out of the mouth of the tube. He gazed in wonder, never having seen a speaking-tube before.
“Well,” said Mr. Pappleworth disagreeably into the tube, “you'd better get some of your back work done, then.”
Again the woman's tiny voice was heard, sounding pretty and cross.
“I've not time to stand here while you talk,” said Mr. Pappleworth, and he pushed the plug into the tube.
“Come, my lad,” he said imploringly to Paul, “there's Polly crying out for them orders. Can't you buck up a bit? Here, come out!”
He took the book, to Paul's immense chagrin, and began the copying himself. He worked quickly and well. This done, he seized some strips of long yellow paper, about three inches wide, and made out the day's orders for the work-girls.
“You'd better watch me,” he said to Paul, working all the while rapidly. Paul watched the weird little drawings of legs, and thighs, and ankles, with the strokes across and the numbers, and the few brief directions which his chief made upon the yellow paper. Then Mr. Pappleworth finished and jumped up.
“Come on with me,” he said, and the yellow papers flying in his hands, he dashed through a door and down some stairs, into the basement where the gas was burning. They crossed the cold, damp storeroom, then a long, dreary room with a long table on trestles, into a smaller, cosy apartment, not very high, which had been built on to the main building. In this room a small woman with a red serge blouse, and her black hair done on top of her head, was waiting like a proud little bantam.
“Here y'are!” said Pappleworth.
“I think it is 'here you are'!” exclaimed Polly. “The girls have been here nearly half an hour waiting. Just think of the time wasted!”
“YOU think of getting your work done and not talking so much,” said Mr. Pappleworth. “You could ha' been finishing off.”
“You know quite well we finished everything off on Saturday!” cried Pony, flying at him, her dark eyes flashing.
“Tu-tu-tu-tu-terterter!” he mocked. “Here's your new lad. Don't ruin him as you did the last.”
“As we did the last!” repeated Polly. “Yes, WE do a lot of ruining, we do. My word, a lad would TAKE some ruining after he'd been with you.”
“It's time for work now, not for talk,” said Mr. Pappleworth severely and coldly.
“It was time for work some time back,” said Polly, marching away with her head in the air. She was an erect little body of forty.
In that room were two round spiral machines on the bench under the window. Through the inner doorway was another longer room, with six more machines. A little group of girls, nicely dressed in white aprons, stood talking together.
“Have you nothing else to do but talk?” said Mr. Pappleworth.
“Only wait for you,” said one handsome girl, laughing.
“Well, get on, get on,” he said. “Come on, my lad. You'll know your road down here again.”
And Paul ran upstairs after his chief. He was given some checking and invoicing to do. He stood at the desk, labouring in his execrable handwriting. Presently Mr. Jordan came strutting down from the glass office and stood behind him, to the boy's great discomfort. Suddenly a red and fat finger was thrust on the form he was filling in.
“MR. J. A. Bates, Esquire!” exclaimed the cross voice just behind his ear.
Paul looked at “Mr. J. A. Bates, Esquire” in his own vile writing, and wondered what was the matter now.
“Didn't they teach you any better THAN that while they were at it? If you put 'Mr.' you don't put Esquire'-a man can't be both at once.”
The boy regretted his too-much generosity in disposing of honours, hesitated, and with trembling fingers, scratched out the “Mr.” Then all at once Mr. Jordan snatched away the invoice.
“Make another! Are you going to send that to a gentleman?” And he tore up the blue form irritably.
Paul, his ears red with shame, began again. Still Mr. Jordan watched.
“I don't know what they DO teach in schools. You'll have to write better than that. Lads learn nothing nowadays, but how to recite poetry and play the fiddle. Have you seen his writing?” he asked of Mr. Pappleworth.
“Yes; prime, isn't it?” replied Mr. Pappleworth indifferently.
Mr. Jordan gave a little grunt, not unamiable. Paul divined that his master's bark was worse than his bite. Indeed, the little manufacturer, although he spoke bad English, was quite gentleman enough to leave his men alone and to take no notice of trifles. But he knew he did not look like the boss and owner of the show, so he had to play his role of proprietor at first, to put things on a right footing.
“Let's see, WHAT'S your name?” asked Mr. Pappleworth of the boy.
“Paul Morel.”
It is curious that children suffer so much at having to pronounce their own names.
“Paul Morel, is it? All right, you Paul-Morel through them things there, and then—”
Mr. Pappleworth subsided on to a stool, and began writing. A girl came up from out of a door just behind, put some newly-pressed elastic web appliances on the counter, and returned. Mr. Pappleworth picked up the whitey-blue knee-band, examined it, and its yellow order-paper quickly, and put it on one side. Next was a flesh-pink “leg”. He went through the few things, wrote out a couple of orders, and called to Paul to accompany him. This time they went through the door whence the girl had emerged. There Paul found himself at the top of a little wooden flight of steps, and below him saw a room with windows round two sides, and at the farther end half a dozen girls sitting bending over the benches in the light from the window, sewing. They were singing together “Two Little Girls in Blue”. Hearing the door opened, they all turned round, to see Mr. Pappleworth and Paul looking down on them from the far end of the room. They stopped singing.
“Can't you make a bit less row?” said Mr. Pappleworth. “Folk'll think we keep cats.”