Sons and Lovers (Barnes & Noble Classics - D. H. Lawrence [63]
“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 applicances 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 fleshpink “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.”cn 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