"Shall I? ... Your overcoat collar's turned up behind. Let me do it."
She straightened the collar.
They went out, through the clerk's office. Edwin gave a sideways nod to Simpson. In the passage some girls and a few men were already hurrying forth. None of them took notice of Edwin and Hilda. They all plunged for the street as though the works had been on fire.
"They are in a hurry, my word!" Hilda murmured, with irony.
"And why shouldn't they be?" the employer protested almost angrily.
In the small yard stood the horseless cart, with "Edwin Clayhanger, Lithographer and Steam Printer, Bursley," on both its sides. The stable and cart-shed were in one penthouse, and to get to the stable it was necessary to pass through the cart-shed. Unchpin, a fat man of forty with a face marked by black seams, was bending over a chaff-cutter in the cart-shed. He ignored the intruders. The stable consisted of one large loose-box, in which a grey animal was restlessly moving.
"You see!" Edwin muttered curtly.
"Oh! What a beautiful horse! I've never seen him before."
"Her," Edwin corrected.
"Is it a mare?"