“I saw there were boys wanted, sir, and I was going upstairs.”
“When that young scoundrel told you a lie. There, go on, and in at that swing-door; the overseer’s office is at the end.”
I thanked him, and went on, pausing before a door blackened by dirty hands, and listened for a moment before going in.
The hum of machinery sounded distant here, and all within seemed very still, save a faint clicking noise, till suddenly I heard a loud clap-clapping, as if a flat piece of wood were being banged down and then struck with a mallet; and directly after came a hammering, as if some one was driving a wooden peg.
There were footsteps below, and I dared not hesitate longer; so, pushing the door, it yielded, and I found myself in a great room, where some forty men in aprons and shirt-sleeves were busy at what at the first glance seemed to be desks full of little compartments, from which they were picking something as they stood, but I was too much confused to notice more than that they took not the slightest notice of me, as I stopped short, wondering where the overseer’s room would be.
At one corner I could see an old man at a desk, with a boy standing beside him, both of them shut up in a glass case, as if they were curiosities; in another corner there was a second glass case, in which a fierce-looking man with a shiny bald head and glittering spectacles was gesticulating angrily to one of the men in white aprons, and pointing to a long, narrow slip of paper.
I waited for a moment, and then turned to the man nearest to me.
“Can you tell me, please, which is the overseer’s office?” I said, cap in hand.
“Folio forty-seven—who’s got folio forty-seven?” he said aloud.
“Here!” cried a voice close by.