“Yes, of course, miss,” said the handsome man, “but you see—well, so much of the work is hardly suited for a lady. Some of it requires a good deal of muscular strength. Then, if I may mention it, you would spoil your hands. Then, again, you would hardly like to work in our repairing shop among the ordinary workmen who are there. There really are many difficulties. Hadn’t you better think it over, perhaps?”
“Marshall.” It was the voice of the powerful man in the dirty overall. It was a loud voice, and packed full of authority.
“Yes, sir,” said the handsome man in the frock coat.
“You will arrange that. See? Do the best you can for the lady.”
Then he wandered away through a glazed door which seemed to lead to outer darkness, carrying tenderly in one hand one of the car’s vertebræ.
I had been imagining all this time that the frock coat was the supreme manager and general god of the place, and that dirty overall was a mere workman. I now saw that this was not the case.
“Well, miss,” said Mr. Marshall, “we can but try it, as Mr. James says so. You will have to get something to cover up your clothes if you don’t want to spoil them.”
“I have got that already,” I said. “I don’t want to work many hours a day. Two or three in the morning would be quite enough. I suppose I could not begin by driving?”
“No,” said Mr. Marshall. “You would begin by trying to understand the car; then, of course, the rest would depend upon how you get on.” There was no hope in his face whatever.
Nothing remained but to settle the terms, and here it seemed to me that Mr. Marshall was very reasonable and lenient. But the man to whom I should have liked to talk was Mr. James, and he did not appear again that morning.