"Master used to say so, 'm, but somehow——"
"Yes," Violet broke in, anticipating some implied criticism of the master. "Yes. But, of course, he simply hasn't been able to do it. He's been dreadfully overworked as it is. Now there's all those books in the bathroom to begin with. I'm going to have them in the top front-room, next to yours, you know.... I wish there were some spare shelves, but I suppose we must arrange the books on the floor."
"There's a lot of shelves slanting down the cellar steps, 'm," said Elsie, with the joy of the bringer of glad tidings.
"Oh! I didn't know we had a cellar."
"Oh, yes, 'm, there's a cellar."
Violet enveloped herself in the pinafore-apron and put on the gloves. The bride on her honeymoon and the girl crept softly downstairs, and one by one, with miraculous success in the avoidance of any sound, the planks—they were no more than planks—were transported from the bottom of the house to the top. No uprights for the shelves could be discovered, but Violet, whose natural ingenuity had been intensified by the resistless force of her grandiose idea, improvised supports for the shelves out of a lot of shabby old volumes of The Illustrated London News. She laid a shelf on three perpendicular tomes—one at either end and one in the middle—and then three more tomes on the shelf, and then another shelf on them, and so on, till the whole of the empty wall in the front room was a bookcase ready to receive books. Violet was well pleased, and Elsie marvelled at Violet's magical creative power.
The house was sealed up from the world. Not a door open; not a window open! Hours passed. The sun coldly shone. The faint jangle of church-bells was the only sound within the house where the two devotees laboured in a tiptoeing silence upstairs and downstairs while the master reposed unconscious. Violet filled Elsie's stout apron with books, and, bearing a handful of books herself, followed her upstairs; the books were ranged; the devotees descended again. The work was simplified by the fact that the vacuum-cleaners had remedied the worst disorder on the previous day; they had, for example, emptied the bath of all its learning. At intervals Violet listened anxiously at the bedroom door. Once she peeped in. No sign of life. And the devotees were happy because in their rage of constructive energy they had contrived not to wake the master. The bathroom was cleared; the chief obstructions on the stairs were cleared; and there was still some space available on the improvised shelves.
"We'll move on to that dark corner of the shop-floor by the stairs," said Violet, triumphing more and more.
This decision meant still more stair-climbing. When Elsie, breathless, had lifted the first load out of the shop to the top-floor, Violet said thoughtfully as she emptied the apron: "I suppose your master is still asleep? Does he ring? Is there a bell?"
"Yes, there's a bell, 'm, but it's been out of order ever since I was here, and I don't know where it would ring if it wasn't out of order. He's never slept like this before, 'm."