George Fenn - The Story of Antony Grace

It was but a casual glance I had as I passed on, and then went by a room with the door half open and the floor carpeted inside. There was a pleasant, musical voice speaking, and then there was a burst of laughter, all of which seemed out of keeping in that dingy place, full of the throb of machinery, and the odour of oil and steam.

At the end of the passage was the staircase, and going up, I was nearly knocked over by a tall, fat-headed boy, who blundered roughly against me, and then turned round to cry indignantly —

“Now, stoopid, where are yer a-coming to?”

“Can you tell me, please, where I am to ask about boys being wanted?” I said mildly.

“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 apron, 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, pushing the door, it yielded, and I found myself in a great room, where some forty men in aprons and shirt-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 glass case, as if they were curiosities; in another corner there was a second glass case, in which a fierce-looking man with a shiny bald head and glittering spectacles was gesticulating angrily to one of the men in white aprons, 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 passage 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.

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