The Story of Antony Grace Part 23

"Oh, find out! There ain't no boys wanted here."

"Not wanted here!" I faltered, with my hopes terribly dashed, for I had been building castles high in the air.

"No; be off!" he said roughly, when a new character appeared on the scene in the shape of a business-looking man in a white ap.r.o.n, carrying down an iron frame, and having one hand at liberty, he made use of it to give the big lad a cuff on the ear.

"You make haste and fetch up those galleys, Jem Smith;" and the boy went on down three stairs at a time. "What do you want, my man?" he continued, turning to me.

"I saw there were boys wanted, sir, and I was going upstairs."

"When that young scoundrel told you a lie. There, go on, and in at that swing-door; the overseer's office is at the end."

I thanked him, and went on, pausing before a door blackened by dirty hands, and listened for a moment before going in.

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, pus.h.i.+ng the door, it yielded, and I found myself in a great room, where some forty men in ap.r.o.ns and s.h.i.+rt-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 gla.s.s case, as if they were curiosities; in another corner there was a second gla.s.s case, in which a fierce-looking man with a s.h.i.+ny bald head and glittering spectacles was gesticulating angrily to one of the men in white ap.r.o.ns, 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sing along the pa.s.sage, 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 das.h.i.+ng 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."