"Servant, m'am!" said he, putting his pipe behind him as he came into the shop.
"I was referred here to this address from the office of the 'Evening Scrapbook,'" said Celie, with great dignity, standing on her tiptoes among the papers. "I called about the situation of message-boy you advertised for."
"Ye wasna thinkin' o' applyin' yersel'!" said the man, with a weak jocularity. "For my ain part I hae nae objections to a snod bit lass, but the mistress michtna like it."
Miss Cecilia Tennant looked at him in a way that would have frozen a younger man, but the frowsy object from the back shop only smirked and laughed. With care, the jest would serve him a week. He made up his mind to whom he would tell it when the lady was gone.
"I wish to recommend one of the boys from my class for the position. His name is Charles Kelly. He is a smart boy of thirteen, and he is anxious to get good and steady work. What are the wages you offer?"
The man looked cunningly all about the shop. He craned his neck over the counter and looked up the street. He had a long-jointed body, and a neck that shut up and pulled out like a three-draw telescope. Celie Tennant shrank instinctively when the man protruded his head past her in this curious manner, as she might have shrunk from some loathly animal.
Then, having resumed his normal slouch behind the counter, he looked at his visitant and said, "The wage is half a croon a week, and his chance o' the
drawer the same as mysel'."
"His chance of the drawer!" said Celie, not understanding.
"When she's oot," the man continued, laying his finger against the side of his nose and winking with meaning and expression at his visitor. The expression of disgust at the corner of Miss Tennant's nose threatened to result in a permanent tilt, which might have been unbecoming, and which certainly must have frightened the Junior Partner.
"When she's oot," repeated the frowsy one, confidentially, "your friend is welcome to his chance o' the drawer if," he added, with infinite caution, "she was to leave it unlocked, which she seldom does. It's lock'd the noo! See!" And he shook a greasy knob under the counter till the drawer rattled against the bolt of the lock. "Oh, it's just like her! She aye does that when she gangs oot. She's an awsome near woman! She has nae confidence, nae open-hearted leeberality, sic' as a wife ought to hae wi' the husband of her bosom."
"Do you want a message-boy, or do you not?" said Celie, who felt that in the interests of Cleg she would face a battery of artillery, but who really could not stand the rustling among the papers on the floor very much longer.
"Certain she do that!" said the man, "an active boy, an intelligent boy, a Christian boy half a croon a week and his chance o' the drawer."
Once more he protruded his head in that monstrously serpentine manner round the corner of the low shop-door. But this time he retracted it quick as lightning, and shuffled back into the room behind. Celie heard him throw himself on a chair, which groaned under him.
"I'm sleepin' noo," he said, "sleepin' soond. Dinna say that I ever spoke till ye, for I'll deny it if ye do!" he said.
Cecilia Tennant stood her ground bravely, though the newspapers on the floor rustled continuously. She wondered why the path of duty was such a cockroachy one. A moment afterward a grim-looking, hard-faced woman entered. She was a tall woman, with a hooked nose and broad masculine face. The eyes were at once fierce and suspicious. She marched straight round the counter, lifting the little flap at the back and letting it fall with a bang. The cat was sitting on the end of the counter nearest the door of the inner room. The woman took her hand and swept it from the counter, as though she had merely knocked off a little dust. The cat went into the inner room like a projectile.
Then, having entrenched herself at the back of the counter, the fierce-eyed woman turned sharp round and faced Celie Tennant.
"Well?" she said, with a certain defiance in her tone such as women only use to one another, which was at once depreciatory and pitiful. The Junior Partner would have turned and fled, but Celie Tennant was afraid of no woman that walked.
"I came," she said, clearly and coldly, "to ask about the situation of message-boy for one of my Mission lads. I was sent here from the office of the newspaper. Has the situation been filled?"
"What is the boy's name?" asked the woman, twitching the level single line of her black brows at her visitor.
"His name is Charles Kelly."
"Son o' Tim Kelly that leeves in the Brickfield?" asked the woman quickly.
"I believe that is his father's name," said Celie, giving glance for glance.
"Then we dinna want the likes o' him here!" said the woman, half turning on her heel with a certain dark contempt.
"But my name is Cecilia Tennant of Glenleven Road, and I am quite willing to give security for the boy to a reasonable amount, that is " continued Celie, who had a practical mind and much miniature dignity.