I order them from the nurseryman rather than have the
fag of it."
"Well--?"
"Oh, all right. I'll order some for you, Bessie."
Then, when tea was all but finished, a step was heard upon the stairs, and
presently Mr. Gibbon came in. At the sight of the other two men his face
fell perceptibly. To him also the Sabbath was a precious time. The hour,
especially, which brought the meal over which they need not hurry for any
evening work; in the room made sweet with flowers; in the company of the
three charming ladies; on the table the extra delicacies Emily always
provided for the occasion.
Boult! Forcus! The two men whom, least on earth, he desired to see there.
"Hallo, Gibbon!" his chief said; and the man addressed felt in his bones
that the tone was unmistakably that of the employer to the employed. "Been
getting forward for to-morrow, I suppose?"
No, Gibbon said, he had not; and he spoke curtly, and kept his heavy head
up, and drew his brows together, and was somewhat offensive in manner, in
the effort to show he was not subservient. He bowed sulkily to Mr.
Reginald Forcus, when Mrs. Day murmured that gentleman's name. The fact
that the young man when he came of an age to take the third share which
was to be his in the brewery would be rolling in money, was nothing to
him, and he wished to show to all present it was not! At the concert he,
who was ugly, and short, and poor, and of no account in the world, had had
the best of the elegant young man with his fortune and the name which was
one to conjure with in Brockenham.
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