The hum of machinery sounded distant here, and all within seemed very still, save a faint clicking noise, till suddenly I heard a loud clap-clapping, as if a flat piece of wood were being banged down and then struck with a mallet; and directly after came a hammering, as if some one was driving a wooden peg.
There were footsteps below, and I dared not hesitate longer; so, pushing the door, it yielded, and I found myself in a great room, where some forty men in aprons and shirt-sleeves were busy at what at the first glance seemed to be desks full of little compartments, from which they were picking something as they stood, but I was too much confused to notice more than that they took not the slightest notice of me, as I stopped short, wondering where the overseer’s room would be.
At one corner I could see an old man at a desk, with a boy standing beside him, both of them shut up in a glass case, as if they were curiosities; in another corner there was a second glass case, in which a fierce-looking man with a shiny bald head and glittering spectacles was gesticulating angrily to one of the men in white aprons, and pointing to a long, narrow slip of paper.
I waited for a moment, and then turned to the man nearest to me.
“Can you tell me, please, which is the overseer’s office?” I said, cap in hand.
“Folio forty-seven—who’s got folio forty-seven?” he said aloud.
“Here!” cried a voice close by.
“Make even.—Get out; don’t bother me.”
I shrank away, confused and perplexed, and a dark, curly-haired man on the other side turned upon me a pair of deeply set stern eyes, as he rattled some little square pieces of lead into something he held in his hand.
“What is it, boy?” he said in a deep, low voice.
“Can you direct me to the overseer’s office, sir?”
“That’s it, boy, where that gentleman in spectacles is talking.”
“Wigging old Morgan,” said another man, laughing.
“Ah!” said the first speaker, “that’s the place, boy;” and he turned his eyes upon a slip of paper in front of his desk.
I said, “Thank you!” and went on along the passage between two rows of the frame desks to where the fierce-looking bald man was still gesticulating, and as I drew near I could hear what he said.
“I’ve spoken till I’m tired of speaking; your slips are as foul as a ditch. Confound you, sir, you’re a perfect disgrace to the whole chapel. Do you think your employers keep readers to do nothing else but correct your confounded mistakes? Read your stick, sir—read your stick!”
“Very sorry,” grumbled the man, “but it was two o’clock this morning, and I was tired as a dog.”
“Don’t talk to me, sir; I don’t care if it was two o’clock, or twelve o’clock, or twenty-four o’clock. I say that slip’s a disgrace to you; and for two pins, sir—for two pins I’d have it framed and stuck up for the men to see. Be off and correct it.—Now, then, what do you want?”
This was to me, and I was terribly awe-stricken at the fierce aspect of the speaker, whose forehead was now of a lively pink.
“If you please, sir, I saw that you wanted boys, and—”
“No; I don’t want boys,” he raved. “I’m sick of the young monkeys; but I’m obliged to have them.”
“I am sorry, sir—” I faltered.
“Oh yes; of course. Here, stop! where are you going?”
“Please, sir, you said you didn’t want any boys.”
“You’re very sharp, ain’t you? Now hold your tongue, and then answer what I ask and no more. What are you—a machine boy or reader?”
“If you please, sir, I—I don’t know—I thought—I want—”
“Confound you; hold your tongue!” he roared. “Where did you work last?”
“At—at Mr. Blakeford’s,” I faltered, feeling bound to speak the truth.
“Blakeford’s! Blakeford’s!—I know no Blakeford’s. At machine?”
“No, sir! I wrote all day.”
“Wrote? What, wasn’t it a printing-office?”
“No, sir.”
“How dare you come wasting my time like this, you insolent young scoundrel! Be off! Get out with you! I never knew such insolence in my life.”
I shrank away, trembling, and began to retreat down the avenue, this time with the men’s faces towards me, ready to gaze in my red and guilty countenance, for I felt as if I had been guilty of some insult to the majesty of the printing-office. To my great relief, though, the men were too busy to notice me; but I heard one say to another, “Old Brimstone’s hot this morning.” Then I passed on, and saw the dark man looking at me silently from beneath his overhanging brows; and the next moment, heartsick and choking with the effects of this rebuff, the swing-door was thrown open by the fat-headed boy coming in, and as I passed out, unaccustomed to its spring, the boy contrived that it would strike me full in the back, just as if the overseer had given me a rude push to drive me away.
I descended the stairs with the spirit for the moment crushed out of me; and with my eyes dim with disappointment, I was passing along the passage, when, as I came to the open door of the carpeted room, a man’s voice exclaimed—
“No, no, Miss Carr, you really shall not. We’ll send it on by one of the boys.”
“Oh, nonsense, Mr. Lister; I can carry it.”
“Yes, yes; of course you can, but I shall not let you. Here, boy, come here.”
I entered the room nervously, to find myself in presence of a handsome, well-dressed man, another who was stout and elderly, and two young ladies, while upon the table lay a parcel of books, probably the subject of the remark.
“Hallo! what boy are you?” said the younger man. “Oh! one of the new ones, I suppose.”
“No, sir,” I said, with voice trembling and my face working, for I was unnerved by the treatment I had just received and the dashing of my hopes; “I came to be engaged, but—but the gentleman upstairs turned me away.”
“Why?” said the elder man sharply.
“Because I had not been in the printing-office, sir.”
“Oh, of course!” he said, nodding. “Of course. We want lads accustomed to the trade, my man.”
“You should teach him the trade, Mr. Ruddle,” said one of the young ladies quickly, and I darted a look of gratitude at her.
“Too busy, Miss Carr,” he said, smiling at her. “We don’t keep a printer’s school.”
“I’ll teach him,” whispered the young man eagerly, though I heard him; “I’ll teach him anything, if you’ll promise not to be so cruel.”
“What a bargain!” she replied, laughing; and she turned away.
“I don’t think we need keep you, my lad,” said the young man bitterly.
“Indeed!” said the other young lady; “why, I thought he was to carry our parcel of books?”
“But he is a strange boy, my dear young ladies,” said the elder man; “I’ll ring for one from the office.”
“No; don’t, pray!” said the lady addressed as Miss Carr quickly. “I don’t think we will carry the parcel. You will carry it for us, will