“That’s right. Let me see—let me—how’s business?”
“Oh! we’ve been very busy, sir. The men have often had to stop up all night to get things finished.”
“Have they really, though?” he said, nodding and smiling; “and did you stay up, too?”
“No, sir; I read for Mr Jabez Rowle, and he said he wouldn’t sit up all night and upset himself for anybody.”
“Mr Jabez Rowle is quite right, my lad.”
“He said, sir, his work was so particular that after he had been correcting for twelve hours his eyes and mind were exhausted, and he could not do his work properly.”
“Mr Jabez Rowle is a man of business, my lad, evidently. And Mr Lister, is he pretty busy?”
“I think he comes to the office every day.”
“Have a glass of wine, my lad,” he said, getting up and taking a decanter, glass, and a dish of biscuits from a cellaret. “No. Good sherry won’t hurt you. Take some biscuits, then.”
I took some of the sweet biscuits, and Mr Brandsheim nodded approval.