The hard taskmaster nodded his head with exceeding satisfaction.
"I provide bread for eleven hundred and seventy-two persons, and by to-morrow this number will be increased by two hundred. I have given employment to over two thousand persons at one time, I believe, Mr. Williams?"
"You have, sir."
"And shall do so again, I have no doubt, before long. To repeat, I do not employ ladies in this establishment. Common girls and women are good enough for me--and bad enough. For there is absolutely no gratitude to be found among the poorer classes, absolutely no gratitude; not a particle."
This was said with so distinct an assertion of never having belonged to the working classes, and of their small capacity for good and their large capacity for evil, that it would have been remarkable were it not common. There is no greater autocrat than the democrat when he rises to power. There is no stronger despiser of the poor than the poor man when he rises to wealth.
"I shall be grateful if you will give me employment," said Mrs. Lenoir.
"You agree with me in what I say?"
"Certainly, sir."
It was a sure truth that her mind was a blank as to the value of his words, and that she said she agreed with him from a kind of instinct that by doing so her interest would be better served.
"And you are a lady," he said pompously.