'He's somewhere on the bank,[[3]] sir—speaking to the mouldmaker, I think.'
[3]Bank = earthenware manufactory. But here the word is used in a limited sense, meaning the industrial, as distinguished from the bureaucratic, part of the manufactory.
'Well, just bring me in that letter from Paris that came on Saturday, will you?' Stanway requested.
'I've several things to speak to you about,' said Mr. Mayer, when he had brought the letter.
'Directly,' Stanway answered, waving him away, and then turning to Ethel: 'Now, young lady, I want this letter translating.' He placed it before her on the table, together with some blank paper.
'Yes, father,' she said humbly.
Three hours a week for seven years she had sat in front of French manuals at the school at Oldcastle; but she knew that, even if the destiny of nations turned on it, she could not translate that letter of ten lines. Nevertheless she was bound to make a pretence of doing so.
'I don't think I can without a dictionary,' she plaintively murmured, after a few minutes.
'Oh! Here's a French dictionary,' he replied, producing one from a drawer, much to her chagrin; she had hoped that he would not have a dictionary.
Then Stanway began to look through a pile of correspondence, and to scribble in a large saffron-coloured diary. He went out to Mr. Mayer; Mr. Mayer came in to him; they called to each other from room to room. The machinery stopped beneath and started again. A horse fell down in the yard, and Stanway, watching from the window, exclaimed: 'Tsh! That carter!'