“I have heard of folks being worked beyond their strength; and that will be my case, if one may judge by present appearances. It’s too bad of Jenkins!”
Arthur spoke up: he did not like to hear blame, even from Roland Yorke, cast upon patient, hard-working Jenkins. “You should not say it, Roland. It is not Jenkins’s fault.”
“It is his fault. What does he have such a wife for? She keeps Jenkins under her thumb, just as Galloway keeps me. She locked up his clothes, and then told him he might come here without them, if he liked: my belief is, she’ll be sending him so, some day. Jenkins ought to put her down. He’s big enough.”
“He would be sure to come here, if he were equal to it,” said Arthur.
“He! Of course he would!” angrily retorted Roland. “He’d crawl here on all fours, but what he’d come; only she won’t let him. She knows it too. She said this morning that he’d come when he was in his coffin! I should like to see it arrive!”
Arthur had been casting a glance at the papers. They were unusually numerous, and he began to think with Roland that he and Mr. Galloway would not be able to get through them unaided. Most certainly they would not, at Roland’s present rate of work. “It is a pity you are not a quick copyist,” he said.
“I dare say it is!” sarcastically rejoined Roland, beginning to play at ball with the wafer-box. “I never was made for work; and if—”
“You will have to do it, though, sir,” thundered Mr. Galloway, who had come up, and was enjoying a survey of affairs through the open window. Mr. Roland, somewhat taken to, dropped his head and the wafer-box together, and went on with his writing as meekly as poor Jenkins would have done; and Mr. Galloway entered.
“Good day,” said he to Arthur, shortly enough.
“Good day, sir,” was the response. Mr. Galloway turned to his idle clerk.