Arthur pointed with his pen to the door of Mr. Galloway’s private room, to indicate that he was in it. “He is writing letters.”
“I say, Channing, there’s positively nothing left to do,” went on Roland, casting his eyes over the desk. “Here are these leases, but they are not wanted until to-morrow. Who says we can’t work in this office?”
Arthur laughed good-naturedly, to think of the small amount, out of that day’s work, which had fallen to Roland’s share.
Some time elapsed. Mr. Galloway came into their room from his own to consult a “Bradshaw,” which lay on the shelf, alongside Jenkins’s desk. He held in his hand a very closely-written letter. It was of large, letter-paper size, and appeared to be filled to the utmost of its four pages. While he was looking at the book, the cathedral clock chimed the three-quarters past two, and the bell rang for divine service.
“It can never be that time of day!” exclaimed Mr. Galloway, in consternation, as he took out his watch. “Sixteen minutes to three! and I am a minute slow! How has the time passed? I ought to have been at—”
Mr. Galloway brought his words to a standstill, apparently too absorbed in the railway guide to conclude them. Roland Yorke, who had a free tongue, even with his master, filled up the pause.
“Were you going out, sir?”
“Is that any business of yours, Mr. Roland? Talking won’t fill in that lease, sir.”
“The lease is not in a hurry, sir,” returned incorrigible Roland. But he held his tongue then, and bent his head over his work.
Mr. Galloway dipped his pen in the ink, and copied something from “Bradshaw” into the closely-written letter, standing at Jenkins’s desk to do it; then he passed the blotting-paper quickly over the words, and folded the letter.