"Won't you please to walk into the parlor, sir," said Mr. Chubb, obsequiously.
"No, no, I'll sit down here. This is what I like to see," said the stranger, looking round at the colliers, who eyed him rather shyly—"a bright hearth where workingmen can enjoy themselves. However, I'll step into the other room for three minutes, just to speak half a dozen words with you."
Mr. Chubb threw open the parlor door, and then stepping back, took the opportunity of saying, in a low tone, to Felix, "Do you know this gentleman?"
"Not I; no."
Mr. Chubb's opinion of Felix Holt sank from that moment. The parlor door was closed, but no one sat down or ordered beer.
"I say, master," said Mike Brindle, going up to Felix, "don't you think that's one o' the 'lection men?"
"Very likely."
"I heared a chap say they're up and down everywhere," said Brindle; "and now's the time, they say, when a man can get beer for nothing."
"Ay, that's sin' the Reform," said a big, red-whiskered man, called Dredge. "That's brought the 'lections and the drink into these parts; for afore that, it was all kep' up the Lord knows wheer."
"Well, but the Reform's niver come anigh Sprox'on," said a gray-haired but stalwart man called Old Sleck. "I don't believe nothing about'n, I don't."