And he was well satisfied with his change of masters. Mr. Faryner, he found, was just as quick-tempered as Mr. Slocum, but he was not mean or spiteful or unjust.
One Saturday when Martin had made a slight mistake in accounting for the money he had received from customers, the baker flew into a rage.
“You’re either a ninny or a rascal!” he cried. “And I don’t know which is worse. Can’t you add two and two? You’re no good to me. Boys are the plague of my life, none of them any good. If they’re not saucy they’re stupid, and if they’re not stupid they’re——. Here, get out of my sight, and don’t stare at me as if I were a fat pig at a fair!”
Martin was careful to keep out of the angry man’s way, and wondered whether, when he received his week’s wages, he would be told to find another job. To his surprise Mr. Faryner seemed to have forgotten the matter that had upset him.
“Here you are, my lad,” he said, as he handed Martin his five shillings. “And you had better take two loaves home to-night instead of one; there are some over, and they’ll be too stale to sell by Monday.”
Like many another quick-tempered man’s, Mr. Faryner’s bark was worse than his bite.
When Martin got home that evening he found Susan Gollop in a great state of excitement.
“I don’t know what’s coming to us all,” she said. “Only think of it! When Mounseer came back from his walk this afternoon he found his room all upside-down and higgledy-piggledy, and me in the house all the time, and never heard a sound!”
“What happened?” asked Martin, remembering the former attempts on the Frenchman’s room.
“Why, someone got in, front or back, I don’t know how, and picked his padlock, and rummaged the room, forced open his cupboard, slit up his mattress, and even ripped the lining of his coat on the peg.”