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."
A hunchback woman on a high stool turned her long, rather heavy face
towards Mr. Pappleworth, and said, in a contralto voice:
"They're all tom-cats then."
In vain Mr. Pappleworth tried to be impressive for Paul's benefit.
He descended the steps into the finishing-off room, and went to the
hunchback Fanny. She had such a short body on her high stool that her
head, with its great bands of bright brown hair, seemed over large, as
did her pale, heavy face. She wore a dress of green-black cashmere, and
her wrists, coming out of the narrow cuffs, were thin and flat, as she
put down her work nervously. He showed her something that was wrong with
a knee-cap.
"Well," she said, "you needn't come blaming it on to me. It's not my
fault." Her colour mounted to her cheek.
"I never said it WAS your fault. Will you do as I tell you?" replied Mr.
Pappleworth shortly.
"You don't say it's my fault, but you'd like to make out as it was," the
hunchback woman cried, almost in tears. Then she snatched the knee-cap
from her "boss", saying: "Yes, I'll do it for you, but you needn't be
snappy."
"Here's your new lad," said Mr. Pappleworth.
Fanny turned, smiling very gently on Paul.
"Oh!" she said.
"Yes; don't make a softy of him between you."
"It's not us as 'ud make a softy of him," she said indignantly.
"Come on then, Paul," said Mr. Pappleworth.
"Au revoy, Paul," said one of the girls.
There was a titter of laughter. Paul went out, blushing deeply, not
having spoken a word.
The day was very long. All morning the work-people were coming to speak
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