“Certainly. I carry mine always in my pocket, for fear my poor mother should see them: and, Mr. Bayne, you have got Cheetham's.”
In another minute the whole correspondence was on the table, and Mr. Holdfast laid it out in order, like a map, and went through it, taking notes. “What a comedy,” said he. “All but the denouement. Now, Mr. Bayne, can any other manufacturers show me a correspondence of this kind?”
“Is there one that can't? There isn't a power-wheel, or a water-wheel, within eight miles of Hillsborough, that can't show you just such a correspondence as this; and rattening, or worse, at the tail of it.”
Mr. Holdfast's eye sparkled like a diamond. “I'll make the round,” said he. “And, Mr. Little, perhaps you will be kind enough to go with me, and let me question you, on the road. I have no sub-editor; no staff; I carry the whole journal on my head. Every day is a hard race between Time and me, and not a minute to spare.”
Mr. Cheetham was expected at the works this afternoon: so Henry, on leaving Mr. Holdfast, returned to them, and found him there with Bayne, looking, disconsolately, over a dozen orders for carving-tools.
“Glad to see you again, my lad,” said Cheetham. “Why, you look all the better.”
“I'm none the worse, sir.”
“Come to take your balance and leave me?” This was said half plaintively, half crossly.
“If you wish it, sir.”
“Not I. How is it to be?”