"Your father's not come yet," said the landlady, in the peculiar half-scornful, half-patronizing voice of a woman who talks chiefly to grown men. "Sit you down."
Paul sat down on the edge of the bench in the bar. Some colliers were "reckoning"—sharing out their money—in a corner; others came in. They all glanced at the boy without speaking. At last Morel came; brisk, and with something of an air, even in his blackness.
"Hello!" he said rather tenderly to his son. "Have you bested me? Shall you have a drink of something?"
Paul and all the children were bred up fierce anti-alcoholists; and he would have suffered more in drinking a lemonade before all the men than in having a tooth drawn.
The landlady looked at him de haut en bas, rather pitying, and at the same time resenting his clear, fierce morality. Paul went home, glowering. He entered the house silently. Friday was baking day, and there was usually a hot bun. His mother put it before him.
Suddenly he turned on her in a fury, his eyes flashing:
"I'm not going to the office any more," he said.
"Why, what's the matter?" his mother asked in surprise. His sudden rages rather amused her.
"I'm not going any more," he declared.
"Oh, very well, tell your father so."