“Well, how ’as ter gone on?” he asked.
“I was ready for you to come home,” she replied tenderly. In his black face the whites of his brown eyes flashed at her.
“An’ I wor ready for comin’,” he said. He planked his tin bottle and snap-bag on the dresser, took off his coat and scarf and waistcoat, dragged his armchair nearer the fire and sat down.
“Let’s ha’e a bit o’ dinner, then—I’m about clammed,” he said.
“Aren’t you goin’ to wash yourself first?”
“What am I to wesh mysen for?”
“Well, you can’t eat your dinner——”
“Oh, strike a daisy, Missis! Dunna I eat my snap i’ th’ pit wi’out weshin’?—forced to.”
She served the dinner and sat opposite him. His small bullet head was quite black, save for the whites of his eyes and his scarlet lips. It gave her a queer sensation to see him open his red mouth and bare his white teeth as he ate. His arms and hands were mottled black; his bare, strong neck got a little fairer as it settled towards his shoulders, reassuring her. There was the faint indescribable odour of the pit in the room, an odour of damp, exhausted air.
“Why is your vest so black on the shoulders?” she asked.