she said, calling him back.
“Yes, mum.”
“Don’t you dare to say a word about what it’s for.”
“No, mum.”
Jacky went off round by his tool-shed, out into the street, and down to the foundry gates, where, after a word with the gateman, he went on across the great metal-strewn yard in search of Mrs Glaire’s sturdy foreman.
Meanwhile that lady caught up her dog, and carried him to a garden seat, where, upon being set down, he curled up and went to sleep, his tail and ears combined, making a comfortable coverlid. Then taking off her scissors and placing them in her basket, Mrs Glaire seated herself, sighing deeply, and taking out from a voluminous pocket, which took sundry evolutions with drapery to reach, a great ball of lambswool and a couple of knitting pins, she began to knit rapidly what was intended to be some kind of undergarment for her only son.
“Oh, Dick, Dick,” she muttered; “you’ll break my heart before you’ve done.”
The knitting pins clicked loudly, and a couple of bright tears stole down her cheeks and dropped into her lap.
“And I did not tell him to hold his tongue before Eve,” she exclaimed, sharply. “Tut-tut – tut-tut! This must be stopped; this must be stopped.”
The sighing, lamenting phase gave place by degrees to an angry one. The pins clicked sharply, and the pleasant grey head was perked, while the lips were tightened together even as were the stitches in the knitting, which had to be all undone.
Just then the garden door opened, and a broad-shouldered grizzled man of seven or eight and forty entered the garden followed by Jacky. Foreman though he was, Joe Banks had been hard at work, and his hands and lace bore the grime of the foundry. He had, however, thrown on a jacket, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, leaving a half clean line over his pale blue eyes, while a pleasant smile puckered such of his face as was not hidden by his closely cut grizzled beard.
“Sarvant, ma’am,” he said, making a rough bow to the lady of the house.
“Good morning, Banks,” said Mrs Glaire. “Jacky, go and nail up that wistaria, and mind you don’t tumble off the ladder.”
Jacky looked injured, but walked off evidently making a bee line for the tool-shed – one which he did not keep.
“Little on, mum,” said the foreman, with a wise nod in Jacky’s direction. “Wants a month’s illness to be a warnin’.”
“It’s a pity. Banks, but he will drink.”
“Like lots more on ’em, ma’am. Why if I was to get shut of all the lads in the works there who like their drop of drink, I shouldn’t have half enew.”
“How are things going on, Banks?” said Mrs Glaire.
The foreman looked at her curiously, for it was a new thing for his mistress to make any inquiry about the foundry. A few months back and he had to make his daily reports, but since Richard Glaire had come of age, Mrs Glaire had scrupulously avoided interfering in any way, handing over the business management to “my son.”
“I said how are things going on in the foundry, Banks,” said the lady again, for the foreman had coughed and shuffled from one foot on to the other.
“Do you wish me to tell you, ma’am?” he said at last.
“Tell me? of course,” said Mrs Glaire, impatiently. “How are matters?”
“Bad.”
“Bad? What do you mean?”
“Well, mum, not bad as to work; ’cause there’s plenty of that, and nothing in the way of contracts as is like to suffer by waiting.”
“Then, what do you mean?”
“Well, you see, ma’am, Mr Richard don’t get on wi’ the men. He wants to have it all his own way, and they want to have it all theirn. Well, of course that wean’t work; so what’s wanted is for the governor to give way just a little, and then they’d give way altogether.”
“But I’m sure my son Richard’s management is excellent,” said Mrs Glaire, whose lip quivered a little as she drew herself up with dignity, and began a fresh row of her knitting.
Banks coughed slightly, and remained silent.
“Don’t you think so, Banks?”
“Well, you see, ma’am, he’s a bit arbitrary.”
“Arbitrary? What do you mean, Banks?”
“Well, you see, ma’am, he turned Sim Slee off at a moment’s notice.”
“And quite right, too,” said Mrs Glaire hotly. “My son told me. The fellow is a spouting, mouthing creature.”
“He is that, ma’am, and as lazy as a slug, but it made matters worse, and just now there’s a deal of strikes about, and the men at other places listening to delegates from societies, and joining unions, and all that sort of stuff.”
“And have you joined one of those clubs, Joe Banks?” said Mrs Glaire, sharply.
“Me join ’em, ma’am? Not I,” said Banks, who seemed immensely tickled at the idea. “Not I. I’m foreman, and get my wage reg’lar, and I don’t want none of their flummery. You should hear Ann go on about ’em.”
“I beg your pardon, Banks,” said Mrs Glaire. “I might have known that you were too sensible a man to go to these meetings.”
“Well, as to being sensible, I don’t know about that, Missus Glaire. Them two women folk at home do about what they like wi’ me.”
“I don’t believe it, Joe,” said Mrs Glaire. “Daisy would not have grown up such a good, sensible girl if she had not had a firm, kind, sensible father.”
“God bless her!” said Joe, and a little moisture appeared in one eye. Then speaking rather huskily – “Thank you, ma’am – thank you, Missus Glaire. I try to do my duty by her, and so does Ann.”
“Is Ann quite well?”
“Quite well, thank you kindly, ma’am,” said the foreman. “Don’t you be afeared for me, Missus Glaire. I worked with Richard Glaire, senior, thirty years ago, two working lads, and we was always best of friends both when we was poor, and when I saw him gradually grow rich, for he had a long head, had your husband, while I’d only got a square one. But I stuck to him, and he stuck to me, and when he died, leaving me his foreman, you know, Mrs Glaire, how he sent for me, and ‘Joe,’ he says, ‘good bye, God bless you! You’ve always been my right hand man. Stick to my son.’”
“He did, Joe, he did,” said Mrs Glaire, with a deep sigh, and a couple of tears fell on her knitting.
“And I’ll stick to him through thick and thin,” said the foreman, stoutly. “For I never envied Dick, his father – there, ’tain’t ’spectful to you, ma’am, to say Dick, though it comes natural – I never envied Master Glaire his success with his contracts, and getting on to be a big man. I was happy enough; but you know, ma’am, young Master Dick is
