The Story of Antony Grace Part 31

"Just you call out, that's all," he said, "and I'll half kill you. Hold still, you little sneak. You make so much noise as'll reach outside, and I'll jump on you."

We were close beside the lead sink and the pot of solution-lye, as the printers call it; and now a new idea seemed to come into the spiteful young wretch's mind, for, throwing down the brush, he seized hold of me with both hands, and as we struggled, being much the stronger, he got behind me, thrust his knee violently into my back, and brought me down kneeling before the great earthen pot. And now for the first time I saw what he intended to do, namely, to thrust my face and head into the black caustic solution, and, in spite of my resistance, he got it down lower and lower.

I might have shrieked out for help, and I might have cried for mercy; but, moved partly by his threats, partly by shame, I refrained, and made use of all my strength to escape, but in vain; strive as I would, he forced me down lower and lower, and then by one quick effort placed a hand on the back of my head and thrust it right into the filthy water.

Fortunately for me it was but a momentary affair, and the next instant he allowed me to struggle up and run blindly to the sink, where, perhaps, a little alarmed by his success, he filled a bowl with clean water, leaving the tap running, as I strove to sluice off the blinding, tingling fluid.

I was in the midst of this, and with soaked necktie and collar, kept on bathing my face and hair, when I heard Mr Grimstone's voice at the door, and hastily thrust my fingers into my ears to clear them.

"What's he doing?"

"Was.h.i.+ng hisself, sir."

"Was.h.i.+ng himself?"

"Yes, sir; he said it was such a nasty dirty job to brush galleys that he must have a good clean."

"Where's the towel?" I said blindly, for my eyes smarted so that I dare not open them, and they grew so painful that I hurried once more to the sink and bathed them with clear water before pressing my hair as dry as I could, and then using my handkerchief to wipe my face.

I now opened my eyes, and saw that there was a very dirty jack-towel on a roller behind the door, to which I hastily ran.

"Look here, sir," said Mr Grimstone, as I hastily rubbed away at my head; "we can't have these goings-on here. What have you been doing?"

"I think he's been using the lye, sir," cried the young hypocrite. "I told him it was only for the type."

"It isn't true, sir," I cried indignantly; when a compositor came up to the door, and Mr Grimstone was called away.

The moment he was gone, Smith darted at me, and thrust his doubled fist hard against my face.

"You say a word agen me," he said, "and I'll half kill yer. I'll smash yer, that I will, so look out."

He went out of the place, leaving me hot and indignant, rubbing away at my tingling head, which I at length got pretty dry and combed before a sc.r.a.p of gla.s.s stuck by four tacks in a corner; and when I had finished it was in time to see the men just returning from their tea and resuming their work.

Not being told to do anything else, I went back to the case, and continued to learn the boxes, not much the worse for my adventure, only feeling uncomfortably wet about the neck.

At last the clock pointed to eight, and, following the example of the rest, I hurried out of the great office, eager to get back to Mr Revitts before he went on duty, for I wanted to ask him a question.

I got up to the street in Pentonville just as he was coming out of the house, and in answer to his "Halloa! here you are, then," I caught hold of his arm.

"Bill!" I exclaimed, panting with excitement, "can you teach me how to fight?"

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

WILLIAM REVITTS ON LESSONS.

Sometime pa.s.sed before William Revitts replied in full to my question.

He had, of course, asked me what I meant, and I had explained to him the treatment I had received, but his duties and mine kept us a great deal apart. One night, however, when he had returned to day-duty, he was seated in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves talking to me, and said all of a sudden: "Yes, I could teach you how to fight, Antony."

"And will you?" I said eagerly.

"Give me my 'bacco and pipe off the chimney-piece."

I handed them to him, and waited patiently while he filled and lighted his pipe, and then all at once, along with a puff of smoke, he exclaimed:

"No, I sha'n't. Fighting's all blackguardism, as I know as well as most men. I've had the taking up of some of the beauties as go in for it, and beauties they are. I don't say as if I was you I wouldn't give that Master Jem Smith an awful crack for himself if he meddled with me again; but I should do it when I was in a pa.s.sion, and when he'd hurt me.

You'll hit as hard again then, and serve him right. Now let's have a turn at spelling."

We did "have a turn at spelling," and I dictated while Revitts wrote, varying the task with bits of advice to me--absurd enough, some of them, while others were as shrewd and full of common-sense.

By that time I had rapidly begun to fish up odds and ends of experience, such as stood me in good stead, and, in spite of what was really little better than contemptible persecution on the overseer's part, I was making some little way at the printing-office.

I shall not soon forget the feeling of pride with which on the first Friday night I heard my name called out by a business-like clerk with a book, after he had summoned everyone in the room, and received from him a little paper-bag containing my wages.

"You haven't been full time, Grace," he said, entering the sum paid in a book; "but the firm said I was to pay you for the week, as you were a beginner."

As soon as I thought I was un.o.bserved, I counted out seven s.h.i.+llings, a sum that showed that I was a little favoured, for honestly I believe that I was not worth that amount to my employers.

Hardly had I made sure of my good fortune than I had a visit from Jem Smith, who came up grinning.

"Now, then," he said, "old Grim's gone for the night, and you've got to come down and pay your footing."

I stared at him in my ignorance, but, fully under the impression that something unpleasant was meant, I resolutely determined to stay where I was, and I was saved from further persecution by Mr Hallett coming up, which was the signal for Jem Smith to sneak off. I asked Hallett what was meant, and he explained to me that it was a custom for working men on entering a new place to pay for some beer for their fellow-workmen.

"But don't you pay a penny to the young wolves," he said, and I determined that I would not.

I was well on in the second week, and during the intervening days I had been set to every dirty and objectionable task Mr Grimstone could invent for me, but I did them patiently and well. I had seen nothing of my employers, and but little of Mr Hallett, who seemed too busy to take much notice of me; but he somehow had a knack of turning up in emergencies, just when I required help and counsel, showing that he kept an eye upon me for my good.

I noticed as I sat beneath a frame eating my dinner in the composing-room that he always employed a good deal of his time in drawing or calculating, and I found, too, that he was no great favourite with his fellow-workmen, who nicknamed him the steam-engine, because he worked so rapidly and did so much. It was very plain, too, that the overseer hated him, giving him the most difficult and unpleasant tasks, but they were always willingly done by Mr Hallett, who was too good a workman to be spared.

I had just completed the was.h.i.+ng of some very dirty type one day, and, according to orders, made my way up to Mr Grimstone's gla.s.s case, very dirty and grubby-looking, no doubt, when I stared with surprise on seeing there before me a little cleanly-shaven man who, except in clothes, was the exact counterpart of Mr Rowle.

Somehow or other I had been so occupied, and my mind so intent upon the task given me, that I had thought no more about asking to see him; and now, here he was, Mr Rowle's twin brother, in angry altercation with the overseer, while Jem Smith stood in the door. The latter had been let off a good many dirty, tasks of late, and I had succeeded to them, but the promotion he had received did not seem to have been attended with success.

"Now look hero, Grimstone," the little man was saying, "you needn't bark at me, for I don't care a pinch of snuff for all your snarls. I asked you to send me up the best boy you had, to read, and you sent me your worst."

"Mr Rowle, it is false, sir."

"And I say it is true, and that you did it all out of your cra.s.s obstinacy and determination to be as disagreeable as you can to everybody in the place."

"I sent you up one of my best boys, Mr Rowle."

"And I say you sent me your very worst--as thick-headed, stupid a dunce as ever entered the place. Look here," he continued, flouris.h.i.+ng a sheet of ma.n.u.script in one hand, a long slip of printed paper in the other. "He can't read that plain piece of writing, and as to the print, why, he's little better."

"No such thing, sir," said Mr Grimstone, fuming.

"Don't tell me 'no such thing,'" said the little man fiercely. "Why, the biggest fool in the office would do better. Here, boy," he cried to me, as I stood there with my hands as black as dirty type could make them; "come here."