‘Upstairs, ye fool!’ said the man.
‘It’s a cold mornin’,’ said Paul. That nose o’ yours looks a bit pinched with it. I’ve half a mind to warm it for you.’
‘Well,’ said the surly man, ‘how often do you want to be spoken to?’
‘Once is enough,’ said Paul. ‘Come outside and I’ll gi’ thee a lesson in manners.’
The surly man declined this invitation, and slid down the glass in front of him. Paul mounted wrathfully. He was more grieved at himself than at the other fellow, because he had made up his mind to be civil to everybody, and above all things to put away the Barfield accent, which he could do quite easily when he thought about it.
In the great room he entered there were rows on rows of compositors’ frames, all dimly illuminated by a single gas-jet, and the air was thick with fog. One prematurely sharp-looking small boy was performing a sort of rhythmic dance with a shrill whistle for accompaniment. He had a big can of water, which he swung like a censer as he danced. The can had a small hole pierced in the bottom, and the boy was laying the dust When the can had yielded its last drop he took up a big broom and swept the place rapidly, keeping up his shrill whistle meanwhile.
‘Isn’t it time somebody was here?’ Paul asked at length.
‘Manday’s a saint’s day,’ said the boy. ‘You a-comin’ to work ‘ere?’ he asked. Paul nodded. ‘You’ll know better next taime. Why, even the “O.” doesn’t come before naine on a Manday.’
That was the fashionable Cockney dialect of the time. It is dead, as are the many fashions of Cockney speech which have followed it until now, and as the present accent will be in a year or two. It tickled Paul’s ear, and to get more of it he beguiled the boy to talk.
‘Who’s the “O.”?’ he asked