| To Removal of furniture | 1 | 9 |
| Storage of same at rate of 6 pence per day | 1 | 6 |
| Restoration of same | 1 | 9 |
| Impliments | 1 | 0 |
| Man’s time | 1 | 3 |
| Sundrys | 6 | |
| 7 | 9 |
It was quite a formidable total, but Lorna was evidently accustomed to extortionate demands, and began beating him down without delay.
“Well, of all the outrageous pieces of impudence! Seven and ninepence, indeed! You must have taken leave of your senses. If you think I am going to pay you four or five shillings for carrying a few odds and ends of furniture along the passage, you are mightily mistaken! And we should have to help you, too, for you couldn’t manage alone. If we asked Wallace he’d do it at once, without any pay at all.”
“Drink to me only with thine eyes!” chanted the little wretch, folding his arms and gazing fixedly at me with a life-like assumption of Wallace’s attitude and expression, which sent Lorna into fits of laughter, and made me magenta with embarrassment. “If you like to wait until Wallace has time to run your errands and see you through your difficulties, you will get your room finished by Christmas—with luck! I am sorry you think my charges high, but I’m afraid I don’t see my way to reduce ’em.”
“Midas, don’t be a goose! We will pay you twopence an hour for your time, and twopence a day for storage—that’s the limit. That disposes of the first four items. As for the rest, we had better understand each other before we go any further. Kindly distinguish between implements and sundries.”
“Is this an Oxford local, or is it a conversation between a brother and sister?” Midas demanded, throwing back his head, and mutely appealing to an unseen arbiter in the corner of the ceiling. “If you can’t understand a simple thing like that, it doesn’t say much for your education. It is easily seen you were never a plumber! I thought we were going to come to a friendly agreement, but you are so close and grasping, there is no dealing with you. Look here, will you give me half-a-crown for the job?”
I gasped with surprise at this sudden and sweeping reduction of terms, but Lorna said calmly—
“Done! A halfpenny discount if paid within the hour!” and they shook hands with mutual satisfaction.
“Cheap at the price!” was Lorna’s comment, as the contractor left the room, and before the next few days were over I heartily agreed with this opinion. Midas was an ideal workman, grudging neither time nor pains to accomplish his task in a satisfactory manner. His long arms and strong wrists made light of what would have been heavy tasks for us, and the dirtier he grew the more he enjoyed it. It must be dreadful to live in a town! Lorna assured me plaintively that the room had been thoroughly spring-cleaned at Easter, but I should have thought it had happened nearer the Flood. I swallowed pecks of dust, and my hands grew raw with washing before we began to paint. I thought we should never have finished enamelling that room. The first coat made hardly any impression on the background, and we had to go over it again and again before we got anything like a good effect. To a casual observer it looked really very nice, but we knew where to look for shortcomings, and I grew hot whenever anyone looked at a certain panel in the door.
Then we set to work on the paper. First you cut it into lengths. It seems quite easy, but it isn’t, because you waste yards making the patterns meet, and then you haven’t enough, and you go into town to buy more, and they haven’t it in stock, and it has to be ordered, and you sit and champ, and can’t get any further.