“Be careful, Edward Riggs, not to put those stars too close, or you’ll be having an accident.”
“They’re all right where they are, aren’t they, Mr. Fuller?”
“Yes, as long as you’re careful,” said Caleb. “Now I’m going upstairs to my office to work. We all have our work to do, you know. And if I hear any laughing or chattering down here, I’ll make some of you see more stars than you’ll ever make in a week.”
One of the girls managed to titter at this and was rewarded by one of Caleb’s greasy smiles. Then he left the apprentices to their work and went into the question of accounts, hidden in his sanctum, which was on the first floor and hardly bigger than a powder-closet. Indeed, Caleb’s high stool and desk with two ledgers and an iron box chained to a staple in the floor filled it so nearly full that when the manager was inside and hard at work nobody could get in unless he squeezed himself into the corner. Caleb’s expressed object in keeping Madame Oriano’s books so meticulously was that if at any moment a purchaser came along with a firm offer for the business, lock, stock, and barrel, he would obtain a better price for it. It was useless for the owner to protest that no inducement or offer of any kind would tempt her into a sale, Caleb insisted. He was as always outwardly subservient to his mistress, but he insisted. And she would tire of arguing with him when she had fired off a few Italian oaths and shrugged her shoulders in contempt of such obstinacy.
“Besides,” Caleb used to point out, “so long as I keep my books properly, anybody can see my honesty. If I kept no books, people would be saying that I was robbing you.”
“I would notta believe them.”
“No, you mightn’t believe them until you were angry with me about something else; but you might believe it then, and I shouldn’t care to be accused of robbing you. It would hurt me very deeply, ma’am.”
As a matter of fact Caleb had robbed Madame Oriano with perfect regularity for the last five years. The humble savings, to which from time to time with upturned eyes he would allude, were actually the small clippings and parings he had managed to make from her daily profits. He did not feel the least guilt in thus robbing her, for not merely could he claim that he was the only person who did rob her nowadays, but he could also claim that these robberies practically amounted to the dowry of her daughter. It was not as if the money were going out of the family. Whether, in the event of his failing to marry Letizia, Caleb would have made the least reparation is doubtful. He would have found another excuse for his behaviour. One of his principles was never to admit even to his tribal deity that he had been or was wrong. He could imagine nothing more corruptly humiliating than the Popish habit of confession. On the other hand, he was always willing to admit that he was liable to err, and he always prayed most devoutly to be kept free from temptation.
In his dusty little office that morning the various emotions to which he had been subjected since yesterday began to react at last upon Caleb’s flabby body. Leaning forward upon his desk, he put his head down upon his folded arms and fell into a heavy sleep.
He was awakened by a series of screams, and jumping off his stool he hurried out into the passage just as one of the girl apprentices enveloped in flames came rushing up the stairs from the basement. He tried to stop her from going higher, but she eluded him, and as she went flashing up the stairs toward the upper part of the house she screamed: