"But didn't I hear you say your master would never get up again?"
Elsie quivered and made no response, no defence.
"What do you mean by saying such a thing? How dare you say such a thing? It isn't true; it isn't true! And even if it was true, do you suppose I want everybody to know about our private affairs? You must have gone out of your mind!"
She waited for an answer from Elsie. None came. Elsie could not articulate. Then Mrs. Earlforward finished, abrupt and tyrannical:
"Shut the shop!"
Elsie found speech:
"It's only a quarter to six, 'm. There's a quarter of an hour yet," she said weakly, but bravely.
"Shut the shop, I tell you!"
Elsie went outside and began to wheel in the bookstand. A vision of Joe leaped up in her mind, and she gazed east and west to see if by chance he might be arriving a day late at that moment. The vision of Joe vanished from her mind. She thought: "This will be the last time I shall ever wheel in the bookstand." Then, from habit, she raked down the ashes from the stove.
"What's the good of raking the stove when you know it's out!" Mrs. Earlforward exclaimed. "Nothing can burn away if it's out. Where are your brains, wasting time?" Mrs. Earlforward marched across the shop, banged the door to, and fastened it violently, definitely. And Elsie thought: "That door'll never open for master's customers again."