LITMIR.BIZ

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Mrs. Morel. “But now WHERE is it?”

      They looked round. On one side was a queer, dark, cardboard factory, on the other a Commercial Hotel.

      “It's up the entry,” said Paul.

      And they ventured under the archway, as into the jaws of the dragon. They emerged into a wide yard, like a well, with buildings all round. It was littered with straw and boxes, and cardboard. The sunshine actually caught one crate whose straw was streaming on to the yard like gold. But elsewhere the place was like a pit. There were several doors, and two flights of steps. Straight in front, on a dirty glass door at the top of a staircase, loomed the ominous words “Thomas Jordan and Son—Surgical Appliances.” Mrs. Morel went first, her son followed her. Charles I mounted his scaffold with a lighter heart than had Paul Morel as he followed his mother up the dirty steps to the dirty door.

      She pushed open the door, and stood in pleased surprise. In front of her was a big warehouse, with creamy paper parcels everywhere, and clerks, with their shirt-sleeves rolled back, were going about in an at-home sort of way. The light was subdued, the glossy cream parcels seemed luminous, the counters were of dark brown wood. All was quiet and very homely. Mrs. Morel took two steps forward, then waited. Paul stood behind her. She had on her Sunday bonnet and a black veil; he wore a boy's broad white collar and a Norfolk suit.

      One of the clerks looked up. He was thin and tall, with a small face. His way of looking was alert. Then he glanced round to the other end of the room, where was a glass office. And then he came forward. He did not say anything, but leaned in a gentle, inquiring fashion towards Mrs. Morel.

      “Can I see Mr. Jordan?” she asked.

      “I'll fetch him,” answered the young man.

      He went down to the glass office. A red-faced, white-whiskered old man looked up. He reminded Paul of a pomeranian dog. Then the same little man came up the room. He had short legs, was rather stout, and wore an alpaca jacket. So, with one ear up, as it were, he came stoutly and inquiringly down the room.

      “Good-morning!” he said, hesitating before Mrs. Morel, in doubt as to whether she were a customer or not.

      “Good-morning. I came with my son, Paul Morel. You asked him to call this morning.”

      “Come this way,” said Mr. Jordan, in a rather snappy little manner intended to be businesslike.

      They followed the manufacturer into a grubby little room, upholstered in black American leather, glossy with the rubbing of many customers. On the table was a pile of trusses, yellow wash-leather hoops tangled together. They looked new and living. Paul sniffed the odour of new wash-leather. He wondered what the things were. By this time he was so much stunned that he only noticed the outside things.

      “Sit down!” said Mr. Jordan, irritably pointing Mrs. Morel to a horse-hair chair. She sat on the edge in an uncertain fashion. Then the little old man fidgeted and found a paper.

      “Did you write this letter?” he snapped, thrusting what Paul recognised as his own notepaper in front of him.

      “Yes,” he answered.

      At that moment he was occupied in two ways: first, in feeling guilty for telling a lie, since William had composed the letter; second, in wondering why his letter seemed so strange and different, in the fat, red hand of the man, from what it had been when it lay on the kitchen table. It was like part of himself, gone astray. He resented the way the man held it.

      “Where did you learn to write?” said the old man crossly.

      Paul merely looked at him shamedly, and did not answer.

      “He IS a bad writer,” put in Mrs. Morel apologetically. Then she pushed up her veil. Paul hated her for not being prouder with this common little man, and he loved her face clear of the veil.

      “And you say you know French?” inquired the little man, still sharply.

      “Yes,” said Paul.

      “What school did you go to?”

      “The Board-school.”

      “And did you learn it there?”

      “No—I—” The boy went crimson and got no farther.

      “His godfather gave him lessons,” said Mrs. Morel, half pleading and rather distant.

      Mr. Jordan hesitated. Then, in his irritable manner—he always seemed to keep his hands ready for action—he pulled another sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it. The paper made a crackling noise. He handed it to Paul.

      “Read that,” he said.

      It was a note in French, in thin, flimsy foreign handwriting that the boy could not decipher. He stared blankly at the paper.

      “'Monsieur,'” he began; then he looked in great confusion at Mr. Jordan. “It's the—it's the—”

      He wanted to say “handwriting”, but his wits would no longer work even sufficiently to supply him with the word. Feeling an utter fool, and hating Mr. Jordan, he turned desperately to the paper again.

      “'Sir,—Please send me'—er—er—I can't tell the—er—'two pairs—gris fil bas—grey thread stockings'—er—er—'sans—without'—er—I can't tell the words—er—'doigts—fingers'—er—I can't tell the—”

      He wanted to say “handwriting”, but the word still refused to come. Seeing him stuck, Mr. Jordan snatched the paper from him.

      “'Please send by return two pairs grey thread stockings without TOES.'”

      “Well,” flashed Paul, “'doigts' means 'fingers'—as well—as a rule—”

      The little man looked at him. He did not know whether “doigts” meant “fingers”; he knew that for all HIS purposes it meant “toes”.

      “Fingers to stockings!” he snapped.

      “Well, it DOES mean fingers,” the boy persisted.

      He hated the little man, who made such a clod of him. Mr. Jordan looked at the pale, stupid, defiant boy, then at the mother, who sat quiet and with that peculiar shut-off look of the poor who have to depend on the favour of others.

      “And when could he come?” he asked.

      “Well,” said Mrs. Morel, “as soon as you wish. He has finished school now.”

      “He would live in Bestwood?”

      “Yes; but he could be in—at the station—at quarter to eight.”

      “H'm!”

      It ended by Paul's being engaged as junior spiral clerk at eight shillings a week. The boy did not open his mouth to say another word, after having insisted that “doigts” meant “fingers”. He followed his mother down the stairs. She looked at him with her bright blue eyes full of love and joy.

      “I think you'll like it,” she said.

      “'Doigts' does mean 'fingers', mother, and it was the writing. I couldn't read the writing.”

      “Never mind, my boy. I'm sure he'll be all right, and you won't see much of him. Wasn't that first young fellow nice? I'm sure you'll like them.”

      “But wasn't Mr. Jordan common, mother? Does he own it all?”

      “I suppose he was a workman who has got on,” she said. “You mustn't mind people so much. They're not being disagreeable to YOU—it's their way. You always think people are meaning things for you. But they don't.”

      It was very sunny. Over the big desolate space of the market-place the blue sky shimmered, and the granite cobbles of the paving glistened. Shops down the Long Row were deep in obscurity, and the shadow was full of colour. Just where the horse trams trundled across the market was a row of fruit stalls, with fruit blazing in the sun—apples and piles of reddish oranges, small green-gage plums and bananas. There was a

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