Orlick was at work and present, next day, when I reminded Joe of my half-holiday. He said nothing at the moment, for he and Joe had just got a piece of hot iron between them, and I was at the bellows; but by and by he said, leaning on his hammer—
“Now, master! Sure you’re not a going to favor only one of us. If Young Pip has a half-holiday, do as much for Old Orlick.” I suppose he was about five-and-twenty, but he usually spoke of himself as an ancient person.
“Why, what’ll you do with a half-holiday, if you get it?” said Joe.
“What’ll I do with it! What’ll he do with it? I’ll do as much with it as him,” said Orlick.
“As to Pip, he’s going up town,” said Joe.
“Well then, as to Old Orlick, he’s a going up town,” retorted that worthy. “Two can go up town. Tain’t only one wot can go up town.
“Don’t lose your temper,” said Joe.
“Shall if I like,” growled Orlick. “Some and their up-towning! Now, master! Come. No favoring in this shop. Be a man!”
The master refusing to entertain the subject until the journeyman was in a better temper, Orlick plunged at the furnace, drew out a red-hot bar, made at me with it as if he were going to run it through my body, whisked it round my head, laid it on the anvil, hammered it out—as if it were I, I thought, and the sparks were my spirting blood—and finally said, when he had hammered himself hot and the iron cold, and he again leaned on his hammer—
“Now, master!”
“Are you all right now?” demanded Joe.
“Ah! I am all right,” said gruff Old Orlick.
“Then, as in general you stick to your work as well as most men,” said Joe, “let it be a half-holiday for all.”
My sister had been standing silent in the yard, within hearing—she was a most unscrupulous spy and listener—and she instantly looked in at one of the windows.
“Like you, you fool!” said she to Joe, “giving holidays to great idle hulkers like that. You are a rich man, upon my life, to waste wages in that way. I wish I was his master!”
“You’d be everybody’s master, if you durst,” retorted Orlick, with an ill-favored grin.
(“Let her alone,” said Joe.)
“I’d be a match for all noodles and all rogues,” returned my sister, beginning to work herself into a mighty rage. “And I couldn’t be a match for the noodles, without being a match for your master, who’s the dunder-headed king of the noodles. And I couldn’t be a match for the rogues, without being a match for you, who are the blackest-looking and the worst rogue between this and France. Now!”
“You’re a foul shrew, Mother Gargery, growled the journeyman. “If that makes a judge of rogues, you ought to be a good’un.”
(“Let her alone, will you?” said Joe.)
“What did you say?” cried my sister, beginning to scream. “What did you say? What did that fellow Orlick say to me, Pip? What did he call me, with my husband standing by? Oh! oh! oh!” Each of these exclamations was a shriek; and I must remark of my sister, what is equally true of all the violent women I have ever seen, that passion was no excuse for her, because it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, she consciously and deliberately took extraordinary pains to force herself into it, and became blindly furious by regular stages; “what was the name he gave me before the base man who swore to defend me? Oh! Hold me! Oh!”
“Ah-h-h!” growled the journeyman, between his teeth, “I’d hold you, if you was my wife. I’d hold you under the pump, and choke it out of you.”
(“I tell you, let her alone,” said Joe.)
“Oh! To hear him!” cried my sister, with a clap of her hands and a scream together—which was her next stage. “To hear the names he’s giving me! That Orlick! In my own house! Me, a married woman! With my husband standing by! Oh! Oh!” Here my sister, after a fit of clappings and screamings, beat her hands upon her bosom and upon her knees, and threw her cap off, and pulled her hair down—which were the last stages on her road to frenzy. Being by this time a perfect Fury and a complete success, she made a dash at the door which I had fortunately locked.
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