Something like the same sensation came over me when I made my way to Great George Street, Westminster, as I had felt on the morning when I presented myself at the great printing-office. But my nervousness soon passed away on being received by Mr Girtley, a short, broad-shouldered man, with a big head covered with crisp, curly grey hair.

“Ah,” he said, speaking in a great hurry, “you’re Antony Grace, our new pupil, are you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Miss Carr’s young friend. Knew Carr: clever, wealthy man.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Yes, only had one fault – died twenty years too soon. Been a millionaire and a modest man combined. Rara avis, eh? Ha, ha, ha! Tom!”

“Yes, father.”

The answer came from an inner office, and a good-looking youth, wonderfully like Mr Girtley, came out with a pencil across his mouth, a pen behind his ear, a scale in one hand, and a pair of compasses in the other. “This is Antony Grace; you take charge of him and show him about. Take it coolly. Festina lente, you know. I say, Antony Grace, what does rara avis mean?”

“A rare or strange bird, sir.”

“Good lad. And festina lente?”

“Hasten slowly, sir.”

“Good lad. You’re all right with your Latin, then. I wasn’t when I began. Had to learn it after I was twenty. Well, I’m busy, Tom; you understand; he’ll be a bit nervous and strange, so don’t worry him. Let him take in spoonfuls first. He’ll learn to drink big draughts later on.”

“I’m very busy over those syphon plans, father.”

“Ah, the new syphon. Yes, that must be done. Well, I’ll set Browning to do them.”

“I’d – I’d much rather finish them myself,” said the youth.

“Of course you would. Well, then, I’ll give you a fortnight’s extension; then you can finish them and have plenty of time for Antony Grace as well. Take him round the works, and then you can go down the river for a run. And, by-the-way, Tom, go in one of the new boats, and tip the engineer. Have a good look at those fresh oscillating cylinders, and see whether you think they beat ours. I’m off. You were quite punctual, Antony Grace, or you wouldn’t have seen me. Always keep your appointments exactly. Good-morning; glad to see you. Hope you’ll get on and like the business. Work hard at it, and mind this – steady application wins. Bring him home to dinner to-night, Tom. Eh? yes.”

“Mr Williamson to see you, sir,” said a clerk.

“My compliments to Mr Williamson, and he must make another appointment. He is an hour after the time he named, and I am engaged for the rest of the day. Lesson in punctuality, Antony Grace,” he said, nodding. “I’m off.”

The door closed after his retreating figure, and Tom and I stood staring, probably thinking the same thing, whether we should like one another. The result of the scrutiny was satisfactory to me, for there was something very pleasant in the young fellow’s frank open countenance, and I longed to meet with a companion nearly my own age.

“Well,” he said quietly, “suppose we have a look round. I shan’t work any more at my plans this morning. This is my place,” he continued, taking me into the inner office, where a great broad mahogany desk was covered with papers. “You’ll have that one; it was Bailey’s; he was father’s pupil; he’s gone out to India on the Great Central.”

I said, “Has he?” but I had no idea whether the Great Central was a ship or a great engine.

“There are my plans for a self-acting syphon. Those parts coloured red are where the vacuum valves will come in, and, of course, this lower part takes the place of a steam-pump.”

“Does it?” I said, laughing. “But I don’t understand it a bit.”

“No, of course not,” he said, laughing too. “Well, you’ll soon learn. You’ll like father, and we’ll like you if you’ll work well. Bailey and he did not get on at all.”

“Didn’t Bailey work well?” I said, as a vision of the idle apprentice came before my eyes.

“Father used to say he was like an engine with a bad stoker. He was either racing, or there was no steam un. He’d work furiously for two days, and then he’d idle for a week.”

“Mr Girtley is fond of work, then?”

“Father says everyone was meant to work, and life’s too short for all we have to do. But he likes play, too. We have a cricket-field at home, and a billiard-table, and bowls – all sorts of games. Father plays at all of them when he’s at home and isn’t gardening. He calls it oiling his machinery and slackening his bands. Come along, I’ll show you the factory, and our workshop, where you and I will have to work, making models, and then we’ll oil our machinery.”

“Shall we have to make models?” I cried eagerly.

“You will, of course. I’m going to be a lawyer. Father thinks the man who is a good engineer is sure to have to invent, and if so, he ought to be able to take the tools out of his men’s hands, and show them how they should be used. Shall you like that? It makes your hands black.”

“Oh, I shan’t mind that,” I said, laughing. “I shall like it.”

We went over the office, and then, taking our caps, he showed me the way over Westminster Bridge to the great works in Lambeth, where steam was puffing and panting, wheels whirring, and iron and steel were shrieking as they were being tortured into shape.

It was a confusing place, and, after passing the timekeeper’s box at the entrance, we seemed to plunge into a kind of Pandemonium, where fires glared, and white-hot masses of metal were being dragged out and beaten till they sent sparks of brilliant fire flying in all directions. From there we ascended to a floor where wheels were whirring and great machines were at work, with men tending them, and pouring oil in the wounds made by mighty steam-worked chisels, or bored in pieces of black iron. In one place, shavings of iron were curling off before a plane like so much soft wood; and on touching them I found them rigid, and hot with the friction necessary to tear them away. Next we were in a higher shop, where lathes were at work, and iron, steel, and brass were being turned like so much ivory. Out of this great floor was a smaller workshop, whose walls were covered with tools; and on shelves around were dozens of strange models, which took my attention strongly as I thought of Hallett’s patient work, and longed to begin at something on the spot.

Here, too, there were lathes, vices, and all the necessary paraphernalia for the constructing engineers, and I left the place unwillingly to join young Girtley in his run down the river, where, the right steamer being chosen, we had our ride; the oscillating engines were examined, and we were back and down at Dulwich in good time for dinner and a look round the spacious grounds afterwards.

I returned to Caroline Street full of my day’s adventures, and ready to tell Mary of my progress towards prosperity, but, to my disappointment, she seemed in nowise dazzled. It was quite a matter of course to her, only a question of time before I should be a great engineer, and in that faith she was a strong believer.

Time glided on, and the half-work, half-play system, upon which I had commenced business at Great George Street had in the course of a month settled into regular hours, but the work did not trouble me, for I led so pleasant a life with Tom Girtley, and found his father so eager and willing a teacher, that I quite enjoyed the toil. There was the one idea, too, always before my mind that some day I should be able to help Hallett, whom I joined nearly every night, to pore over and try to scheme something new for the machine.

I could see that matters were in anything but a happy state at the Halletts’ – Mrs Hallett being more complaining and querulous than ever, and, it seemed to me, rather disposed to side with Linny in her rebellion against her brother’s authority.

For they were not at one: Linny was pale, excitable, and troubled: Hallett, loving, kind, and firm. But from hints he let drop, I found that Linny was as obstinate as ever, and that she was still carrying on a correspondence with her unknown admirer.

One night, after leaving Great George Street, I made my way to Hallett’s, but he was out, and Linny assured me that he would not be back for hours. She evidently wanted me to go, and the reason was plain – she was busy writing a letter; and as I went away, wondering where to go, I bethought me of Mr Jabez Rowle, who lodged in the neighbourhood, and as it would be his time for being home, I determined to go and see him.

I easily found his lodgings, at a little grocer’s shop in a bystreet, where he had the first floor, the front window being turned into quite a garden with flowers, and some scarlet-runners twining up strings on either side.

I heard the familiar snap of his snuff-box as I tapped at the door, and in reply to his “Come in,” I entered, to find the old gentleman taking his leisure by poring over a long slip, and, pen in hand, darting in corrections with a grunt of satisfaction.

“Ah, young Grace,” he cried, “you here! I thought you were lost. Glad to see you, boy. Here, sit down – no, stand up; catch hold of that bit of manuscript, and read it to me – only a dozen sides.” And to my great astonishment I found myself reading away to him in the old style for quite half-an-hour before he reached the bottom of the slip proofs and laid his pen down with a satisfied grunt and took a pinch of snuff.

“Quite a treat, Grace – quite a treat,” he cried. “Sit down. I haven’t had a bit of copy read to me like that since you left. Boy I’ve got’s a fool, and I could knock his head against the wall. Shake hands. How are you?”

I replied that I was quite well, and could see that he was.

“No, I’m not,” he said tartly. “Much bothered. Money matters?” and he took another pinch of snuff. “So you’ve called to ask me to say a word for you to come back to the office, eh? Well, I’m glad, boy – I’m glad! Take it as settled. You can come back to-morrow morning! I will have you, or I’ll know the reason why.”

I stared at him aghast.

“Oh no, Mr Rowle,” I said, “I only came to see you. I thought I should like to. I’m getting on so well.”

“Are you, though? Engineering, eh? Well, I’m sorry for it. No, no: I’m glad of it, my lad. I hope you will get on. But I liked you for a reading-boy. You were the only chap I ever had who could stand by me when I took snuff without sneezing all over the slips, and that’s a great thing. Have a pinch?” he said, offering me his box. “No, no: of course not, I forgot. Glad you came to see me, Grace – very glad. Here, Mrs Jennings,” he cried, going to the door, and shouting down the stairs; “I’ve got a young friend here: bring up some sugar-candy and biscuits and cinnamon; anything nice you’ve got.”

“I really don’t want anything, Mr Jabez,” I said.

“Oh, yes, you do, boy. Ho, hi! Mrs Jennings, bring up some figs.”

He toddled back to his chair, but was up again directly, to shout down the staircase:

“Bring up some almonds and raisins, and candied peel, Mrs Jennings.”

“Lor’ bless the man, do you want the whole shop?” shouted a sharp voice.

“No, I don’t,” said Mr Jabez grumpily, as he toddled back. “I was an out-and-outer for candied peel when I was a boy,” he said, rubbing his hands. “Those dried apples, too, that look as if they had been sat upon by old women, Grace. Ah, I spent a lot of pennies on them when I was a boy.”

A red-faced woman here made her appearance with a plateful of the sweets that Mr Jabez had named, and she rather scowled at me, and banged the plate down hard enough almost to break it as she whisked out of the room again and slammed the door.

“Now, Grace, fall to, as they say in copy about feasts. See that woman?”

“Yes, Mr Jabez.”

“She’s a Tartar, she is. I live here because that woman acts as a lighthouse to me.”

“A lighthouse, sir? Because she has got such a red face?”

“Get out! No, you young joker. A warning, a beacon, a bell-buoy, a light-ship, to warn me off the rocks and shoals of matrimony. I should have married, Grace, years ago, if I hadn’t seen what a life a woman can lead a man. She has nearly made her husband a lunatic.”

“Indeed, Mr Jabez?”

“Well, say imbecile. Peg away, my boy,” he continued, laughing; “these figs are beautiful. Peel’s good, too.”

So it seemed, for Mr Jabez was feasting away with great gusto, and eating two of everything to my one.

“Yes, sir, I should have been married and a poor man, instead of comparatively rich – at least, was. Money matters are rather awkward just now.”

“I’m very sorry to hear it, Mr Jabez,” I said.

“I’m sorry to feel it,” said Mr Jabez, with a fig in one hand and a piece of candied peel in the other. “Come, you don’t eat. By Jingo, there’s Grimstone,” he cried, as a step was heard upon the stairs; and in his excitement and dread of being seen engaged in eating sweets, he stuffed a fig into one breeches-pocket, some peel into the other, and snatched up his snuff-box, while I felt terribly discomposed at the idea of meeting my old tyrant.

“Is it Mr Grimstone?” I faltered.

“Yes, but you don’t eat. Take another fig,” cried Mr Jabez, as, without knocking, Mr Grimstone entered the room.

“Hallo,” he said, without taking off his hat, “what the deuce are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to see Mr Jabez, Mr Grimstone,” I replied.

“Oh, have you? So have I. How long are you going to stop?”

“Oh, hours yet,” said Mr Jabez. “Sit down, Grim. He doesn’t matter; speak out. He doesn’t belong to the shop now. Well: what news?”

“Bad!” said Mr Grimstone, throwing himself into a chair. “Here, boy, take my hat.”

I took it quite obediently, and resumed my seat, while Mr Grimstone wiped his bald head with a bright orange handkerchief.

“You don’t say so?” said Mr Jabez uneasily.

“Yes, I do,” said Mr Grimstone, taking the box out of the reader’s hand and helping himself to a pinch; “I said it quite plain.”

“It’s a bad job.”

“Have you just found that out?” snarled the overseer. “Pretty pair of fools we’ve been. Look here, send that boy away.”

“No, no; no, no. Sit still, Grace. Eat some more figs, boy. I’ll call Mrs Jennings when you’ve eaten them. There, go on, Grim. Antony Grace isn’t a chatterer.”

“Just as you like,” said Grimstone. “Well, if he doesn’t get married to that gal right off, and bank her money, the game’s up, and your 500 pounds and my 750 pounds are gone to the deuce.”

“Is it 750 pounds, Grimstone?”

“Yes, curse him! he got round me with all sorts of promises.”

“Of bonus, Grim, eh?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” growled the overseer. “That bill-discounter chap, Brandysheim, or Brandyman or something’s, cornering him. He was at the office to-day, and there was a regular shine.”

“Was Ruddle there?”

“No, but I hear that Brandysheim threatened to come down on him if he wasn’t paid.”

“And what then?”

“What then?” growled Grimstone, with a show of his teeth; “why, Lister’s smashed up – bankrupt, and you and I may sit and stare at each other for a pair of fools.”

“But it won’t hurt Ruddle.”

“No, only bother him. If Lister’s bankrupt, he’s partner no longer, and Ruddle will have to find out what share he has in the business.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought,” said Mr Jabez dolefully.

“And we shan’t get a penny!”

“Not even interest,” said Mr Jabez.

“Not even interest,” echoed Grimstone.

“Not even bonus,” said Mr Jabez.

“Not even bonus,” echoed Grimstone again.

“What’s he done with his money, that’s what I want to know?” said Mr Jabez.

“Wine – women – horse-racing – foolery! He’s been carrying on like mad, and what I suspect is this – Miss Carr begins to smell a rat, and I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if the wedding didn’t come off.”

Mr Jabez stared dolefully at Mr Grimstone, and the overseer kept on taking pinches of snuff till the box was empty; and, after searching round with finger and thumb, threw the box impatiently down.

“Well, I don’t see that we can do anything,” said Mr Jabez at last, “except wait.”

“No,” said Grimstone, “unless we can see the lady, and make her consent to pay us our 1,250 pounds.”

“And interest,” said Mr Jabez.

“And bonus,” said Grimstone, “down on the nail.”

“Which we can’t do,” said Mr Jabez, shaking his head.

“Of course we can’t,” said Grimstone. “All I wish is that I hadn’t let you persuade me into lending him the money – the savings of a whole life.”

“Oh, I like that!” said Mr Jabez, catching up a pen, and making a mark as if he were correcting Grimstone.

“Like it or not, I don’t care,” said Grimstone, “there it is. Here! boy, my hat.”

“Going?” said Mr Jabez.

“Going! of course I’m going. Think I’m going to stop in this dog-hole, smelling of red-herrings and oil?”

“Won’t you take something? Try a fig.”

Mr Grimstone snatched his hat from my hands, gazed at me as if he would have liked to set me to pick up pie, and bounced out of the room.

“I don’t know which is most unpleasant, Grace,” said the old man, “Grimstone or his news. Well, he’s gone. Of course, you won’t talk about what you’ve heard. It’s a very bad job, though, for me – very – very. Hi! Mrs Jennings,” he cried at the top of the stairs, “half an ounce of best Scotch and Rappee.”

He tapped with his box on the handrail as he spoke, and having had it replenished, he came back to sit and take pinches, becoming so abstracted and ill at ease, that I rose to go when he was a quarter through the half-ounce.

“Going, Grace?” he said. “Ah, I’m bad company to-night, but come again. Let me see, though,” he said, fumbling at some letters in his breast-pocket, “I’ve got a letter here from that bad boy, Peter. Just the same as usual. Tut – tut – oh, here it is. ‘Remember me to that boy,’ – ah, blunder I call it boy – ‘Antony Grace. Tell him I shall come to see him if ever I get two London.’ There’s a fellow for you,” said Mr Jabez, “spells ‘to’ like the figure 2. But he always did want a deal of correcting, did Peter. Good-night, good-night.”

And I went my way, sadly troubled at heart about Miss Carr and Mr Lister, and wondering whether she would, after all, refuse to be his wife.

Chapter Thirty Seven.
An Angry Parting

I had four days to wait before going to Westmouth Street to receive my usual welcome – at least, not my usual welcome, for though she seemed to grow more sad and pale, Miss Carr’s reception of me increased each time in warmth, till at last, had I been a younger brother she could not have been more kind. I was a good deal troubled at heart about what I knew, and puzzled myself as to my duties in the case. Ought I to take Mr Hallett into my confidence, and ask his advice, or ought I to tell Miss Carr herself? It was hard to settle, and I have often thought since of how strangely I was brought at so young an age into the consideration of the weighty matters of life of those with whom I was in contact.

It seemed to me that my patroness ought to know what people said about Mr Lister, and that if it were true she ought not to marry him. Certainly, at the interview at which I was an unwilling listener, there had appeared to be no probability of the wedding taking place soon, but all the same, Miss Carr had seemed to me terribly cut up, consequent upon the parting with Mr Lister.

I was so strange and quiet that afternoon that Miss Carr noticed it, and had just asked me what was the matter when the servant brought up a card and I saw her change colour.

“Show him up, Edward,” she said quietly; and though I did not see the card I felt sure from her manner that I knew who had come, and I looked up at Miss Carr, expecting to be told to go into the next room, but to my surprise she did not speak, and the next moment Mr Lister came in.

“Ah, Miriam!” he exclaimed; “how well – You here, Grace?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, feeling very much in the way, as I stood where I had risen.

“Sit down, Antony,” said Miss Carr quietly; and as I obeyed I saw an angry flush cross Mr Lister’s countenance.

“Will you give me a few minutes in the next room, Miriam dear?” he said in a low voice.

“In my last answer to your letters, John,” she replied, “I begged that you would not come to see me for a month or two. Why are you here now?”

“Why am I here now?” he said in a low, deep voice. “Can you ask me? Because I want to speak to you – particularly – come in the next room.”

I could not help looking hard at him as he spoke, and thinking about what I had heard concerning his affairs, and as I thought that he was to marry Miss Carr to pay off his debts, a strong feeling of resentment against him made me almost determine to utter some word of warning.

“He is so handsome, and has such a way with him,” I thought, “that she will do just as he wishes her;” but as the thoughts were in my mind, I was surprised and pleased by finding Miss Carr take quite a firm standing.

“You can have nothing more to say to me, John, than has been said already. I have told you that at least six months must elapse before I can consent to what you ask.”

“Will you come into the next room, or send away that boy?” he said in a low voice, but one which showed that he was fast losing his temper.

“No,” she said firmly; “and after my last letter I think it cruel of you to press me.”

“I cannot help whether it is cruel or not,” he said, growing white with anger at her opposition, “and you are forcing me to speak before this boy.”

“I leave that to your common-sense, John,” she said calmly, and with no little dignity in her manner. “I don’t know that I wish to hide anything from Antony Grace. He knows of our engagement.”

“Are you mad, Miriam?” he cried, unable to contain himself, and indirectly venting his spleen upon me. “You pick up a poor boy out of the gutter, and you take him and make him your bosom friend and confidant.”

Miss Carr caught my hand in hers, as I started, stung to the quick and mortified by his words.

“Shame, John Lister!” she said, with a look that should have brought him to his senses. “Shame! How can you speak like that in Antony Grace’s presence, and to me?”

“Because you make me desperate,” he cried angrily. “I can bear it no longer. I will not be trifled with. For months now you have treated me as a child. Once more, will you send away this boy, or come with me into another room?”

“Mr Lister,” she said, rising, “you are angry and excited. You are saying words now which you will afterwards grieve over, as much as I snail regret to have heard them spoken.”

“I can’t help that,” he exclaimed. “Day after day I have come to you, begging you to listen to me, but I have always been put off, until now I have grown desperate.”

“Desperate?” she said wonderingly.

“Yes, desperate. I do not wish to speak before this boy, but you force me to it.”

“What is there in our engagement that I should be ashamed to let the whole world hear?” she said proudly. “Why, if I listened to you, it would be published to every one who would hear.”

Mr Lister took a few strides up and down the room.

“Will you hear me, Miriam?” he cried, making an ineffectual effort to command his temper.

“John Lister,” she replied, “I have given you your answer, Come to me in six months’ time.”

“Am I to take that as final?” he said hoarsely.

“Yes. How can I reply otherwise to your violence?”

“Violence! It is enough to drive a man mad! But, once more, Miriam, give me your verbal answer to the note I sent you this morning. Yes or no. Pause before you answer, for you do not know how much depends upon it. You have made me desperate. Don’t leave me to repent of what I have done.”

“John, dear John!” she said softly, “I am alone in the world, with none to guide me, and I have prayed for help that I might give a right answer to your request.”

“Yes,” he said, with his lip curling, “and it is – ”

“It is for both our sakes, John,” she said softly; “I could not in justice to us both say yes, now; it must be no!”

He did not speak, but stood glaring at her for a few moments. Then, looking very white, and drawing in his breath with a long, low hiss, he turned upon his heel and left the room.

For a few minutes Miss Carr sat gazing at the door through which he had passed, and then, turning and seeing my hot, flushed face, she seemed to recall Mr Lister’s words about me, and she took my hand, sitting very quietly for a time.

“When people are angry, Antony,” she said quietly, “they say things they do not intend or mean. You must forgive Mr Lister his words about you – for my sake.”

“I will do what you wish,” I said, and then I began wondering whether I ought to tell Miss Carr what I knew about Mr Lister’s affairs, for it seemed to me that the words I had heard must be true, and that this was the explanation of his great anxiety to fix the day.

A dozen times over the words were on my lips, but I felt that it would seem as if I took advantage of my position, and were trying to blacken Mr Lister to gain her favour. More likely, I thought, it would make her bitter and angry against me, and, reflecting that she had determinedly insisted that he should wait six months for her answer, I remained silent.

Miss Carr strove very hard to make me forget the unpleasantry of the early part of my visit, but she was at times very quiet and subdued, and I believe we both looked upon it as a relief when the time came for my departure.