The routine of that life was little changed from the days when she remembered it first.
Breakfast was at eight, and by nine o’clock, Millar had arrived and Felix Menebees had taken the steel door of the shop off its hinges, pushed up the steel blinds, and taken away their grooved supports to the yard at the back of the house. Every day Felix cleaned the windows, threw sawdust on the floor, and swept it up again. The endless task of cleaning and polishing the plate and silver in stock was also his, and Rose gave him the assistance that she had sometimes, in the past, given to Artie Millar. Dinner was at mid-day, and the afternoon work was almost a repetition of the morning’s. At seven the pledge-office shut, and at eight the shop.
It seemed to Rose that even Uncle Alfred’s clients were identical with those she had known years ago. The same shabby women seemed to come in, with the same small pieces of jewellery, faithfully put into pawn every Thursday morning and redeemed every Saturday afternoon. The same depressed and earnest-looking Jews brought in praying-shawls, brass candlesticks, and small brass mortars and pestles, the latter to be redeemed only in time for the Passover. Even the self-same arguments, that had once taken place between Uncle Alfred and various of his clientèle, now took place between them and Artie Millar.
“How much?”
“Thirty bob.”
“Just a moment.”
The moment was the one, or frequently the four or five, during which Millar would examine the gold ring brought by the customer, and find it, in the majority of cases, just below the market weight required for the sum asked.
“Is twenty-five shillings any good to you?”
“No. I want thirty shillings badly. The fact is, the lady friend I’m lodging with is laid up, and I’ve had to get in one or two little things, and there’s been a trouble, like, with the landlord....”
The assistant always ruthlessly cut short these interpolations that as invariably awoke in Rose an eager thrill of interested curiosity.