him a dish that could be heated up. He took it into the pleasant, clean
room to Polly. And very soon it grew to be an established custom that he
should have dinner with her. When he came in at eight in the morning he
took his basket to her, and when he came down at one o'clock she had his
dinner ready.
He was not very tall, and pale, with thick chestnut hair, irregular
features, and a wide, full mouth. She was like a small bird. He often
called her a "robinet". Though naturally rather quiet, he would sit and
chatter with her for hours telling her about his home. The girls all
liked to hear him talk. They often gathered in a little circle while he
sat on a bench, and held forth to them, laughing. Some of them regarded
him as a curious little creature, so serious, yet so bright and jolly,
and always so delicate in his way with them. They all liked him, and he
adored them. Polly he felt he belonged to. Then Connie, with her mane of
red hair, her face of apple-blossom, her murmuring voice, such a lady in
her shabby black frock, appealed to his romantic side.
"When you sit winding," he said, "it looks as if you were spinning at
a spinning-wheel--it looks ever so nice. You remind me of Elaine in the
'Idylls of the King'. I'd draw you if I could."
And she glanced at him blushing shyly. And later on he had a sketch
he prized very much: Connie sitting on the stool before the wheel, her
flowing mane of red hair on her rusty black frock, her red mouth shut
and serious, running the scarlet thread off the hank on to the reel.
With Louie, handsome and brazen, who always seemed to thrust her hip at
him, he usually joked.
Emma was rather plain, rather old, and condescending. But to condescend
to him made her happy, and he did not mind.
"How do you put needles in?" he asked.
"Go away and don't bother."
"But I ought to know how to put needles in."
She ground at her machine all the while steadily.
"There are many things you ought to know," she replied.
"Tell me, then, how to stick needles in the machine."
"Oh, the boy, what a nuisance he is! Why, THIS is how you do it."
He watched her attentively. Suddenly a whistle piped. Then Polly
appeared, and said in a clear voice:
"Mr. Pappleworth wants to know how much longer you're going to be down
here playing with the girls, Paul."
Paul flew upstairs, calling "Good-bye!" and Emma drew herself up.
"It wasn't ME who wanted him to play with the machine," she said.
As a rule, when all the girls came back at two o'clock, he ran upstairs
to Fanny, the hunchback, in the finishing-off room. Mr. Pappleworth
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