“Tidyish—pretty tidy,” he said coldly. “Not enough hands. Only nine and me—and you—but we do our best.”
“Why, it’s perfection!” I cried.
“No it ain’t,” he said gruffly. “Too much glass. Takes a deal o’ time. I shall make you a glass boy mostly.”
“Make me—a what, sir?”
“Glass boy. You’ll see.”
I said “Oh,” and began to understand.
“Was it like this when you came?” I said.
I was very glad I said it, for Mr Solomon’s mouth twitched, then his eyes closed, and there were pleasant wrinkles all over his face, while he shook himself all over, and made a sound, or series of sounds, as if he were trying to bray like a donkey. I thought he was at first, but it was his way of laughing, and he pulled himself up short directly and looked quite severe as he smoothed the wrinkles out of his face as if it were a bed, and he had been using a rake.
“Not a bit,” he said. “Twenty years ago. Bit of garden to the house with the big trees and cedars. All the rest fields and a great up-and-down gravel pit.”
“And you made it like this?” I cried with animation.