“If you please, I’ve come to work,” I said.
“Work? Why, it’s ten o’clock. Why weren’t you here at eight?”
“Mr Ruddle said ten o’clock, sir, and I want to see him.”
“Oh!” he said gruffly, as if he were the gatekeeper of an earthly paradise. “Well, I s’pose you must pass in. Go on.”
I went on into the passage, feeling as if the doorkeeper was the most important personage there, and as if the proprietors must make a practice of asking permission to go into their own place.
I went, then, nervously down the passage till I came to the door of the room where I had seen Messrs Ruddle and Lister. It was ajar, and there were loud voices talking, and though I knocked they went on.
“Stern firmness is one thing, Grimstone,” I heard Mr Ruddle saying, “and bullying another.”
“But you don’t consider, sir, that I bully the men, do you?” said another voice which was quite familiar to me.
“You may call it what you like, Grimstone. There, I’m busy now.”
There was a sharp step, and the door was flung wide open and closed, when my friend the overseer, who had been so rough to me on the previous day, came out and pretty nearly knocked me down.