The foreman turned—turned his whole person, for his head was set on his vast shoulders with no visible neck between—bent a trifle, and inspected Johnny as he would have inspected some wholly novel and revolutionary piece of machinery. “Y-u-u-us,” he said, with a slowly rising inflection, expressive of cautious toleration, as of one reserving a definite opinion. “Y-u-u-us!”
“Well, he’s to come on as apprentice, and I’d like him to come into your shop. There’ll be no difficulty about that, will there?”
“N-o-o-o!” with the same deliberate inflection, similarly expressive.
“Then you’d better take him down, and tell the timekeeper. He may as well begin on Monday, I suppose.”
“Y-u-u-us!” tuned once more in an ascending scale. And with that the acting partner bade Mrs. May good-morning, turned to his writing, and the business was over.
Cottam the foreman put his cap on his head and led the way through the outer office, along a corridor, down the stairs and across the yard, with no indecent haste. It was a good distance to go, and Johnny was vaguely reminded of a circus procession that had once passed through Loughton, and that he had followed up for nearly three miles, behind the elephant.
Half-way across the yard the foreman stopped, and made a half turn, so as to face Nan May as she came up. He raised an immense leathery fist, and jerked a commensurate thumb over his shoulder. “That’s the young guv’nor,” he said in a hoarse whisper, with a confidential twitch of one cheek that was almost a wink. “That’s the young guv’nor, that is. Smart young chap. Knowed ’im so ’igh.” He brought down his hand to the level of his lowest waistcoat button, twitched his cheek again, nodded, and walked on.
The timekeeper inhabited a little wooden cabin just within the gates, and looked out of a pigeon-hole at all comers. Mr. Cottam put his head into this hole—a close fit—and when he withdrew it, the timekeeper, a grey man, came out of his side door and stared hard at Johnny. Then he growled “All right,” and went in again.
“Six o’clock o’ Monday mornin’,” Mr. Cottam pronounced conclusively, addressing Mrs. May. “Six o’clock o’ Monday mornin’. ’Ere,” with a downward jerk of his thumb to make it plain that somewhere else would not do. Then, without a glance at Johnny, whom he had disregarded since they left the office, he turned and walked off. Johnny and his mother were opening the small door that was cut in the great gate, when Mr. Cottam stopped and turned. “Mornin’!” he roared, and went on.
Mother and boy went their way joyously. Here was one of Nan May’s troubles dissolved in air, and as for Johnny, a world of wonders was before him. Now he would understand how steam made engines go, and all day he would see them going—he would make engines himself, in fact. And for this delightful pursuit he would be paid. Six shillings a week was what apprentices got in their first year—a shilling for every day of work. Next year he would get eight shillings, and then ten, and so on. And at twenty-one he would be a man indeed, an engineer like his father before him. More, he was to draw. The gentleman had told him to draw in his spare time. The clang of hammers was as a merry peal from the works that lined their way, and the hoots of steamships on the river made them a moving music.