"We shall soon get accustomed to the noise, Bill, and I don't think we shall find the work any harder. They don't put boys at hard work, but just jobs like we are doing, to help the men."
"What shall we do about night, George?"
"I think that at dinner-time we had better ask the man we work for. He looks a good-natured sort of chap. He may know of someone he could recommend us to."
They worked steadily till dinner-time; then as they came out George said to the man with whom they were working:
"We want to get a room. We have been lodging together in London, and don't know anyone down here. I thought perhaps you could tell us of some quiet, respectable people who have a room to let?"
The man looked at George more closely than he had hitherto done.
"Well, there aint many people as would care about taking in two boys, but you seem a well-spoken young chap and different to most of 'em. Do you think you could keep regular hours, and not come clattering in and out fifty times in the evening, and playing tom-fools' tricks of all sorts?"
"I don't think we should be troublesome," George said; "and I am quite sure we shouldn't be noisy."
"You would want to be cooked for, in course?"
"No, I don't think so," George said. "Beyond hot water for a cup of tea in the evening, we should not want much cooking done, especially if there is a coffee-stall anywhere where we could get a cup in the morning."