“Wonderful luck,” muttered Mr. Killquick; “exactly the very thing for us! And I have been so put out about that place, it has got such a reputation. Poor Morshead cannot get through the work any longer by himself. And the coroner made such nasty remarks. If we kill another man there before Easter, the Times will be sure to get hold of it. Young man,” he continued in a louder tone, “you are in luck this time, I believe. It is a very snug situation; only you must look sharp after your legs, and be sure you never touch spirits. Not given to blue ruin, I hope?”
“Oh no. I never touch it.”
“Thatʼs right. I was afraid you did, you look so down in the mouth. You can give us a reference, I suppose?”
“Yes, to my landlady, Mrs. Ducksacre, a most respectable person, in trade in Mortimer–street.”
“Good,” replied Mr. Killquick; “you mustnʼt be alarmed, by the way, by any foolish rumours you may hear as to dangers purely imaginary. Your predecessor lost his life through the very grossest carelessness. You are as safe there as in your bed, unless your nerves happen to fail you. And, when that is the case, I should like to know,” asked the traffic–manager indignantly, “which of us is not in danger, even in coming down–stairs?”
“What will my duties be, then?” asked Cradock, with some surprise.
“Why, you are not afraid, are you?” Mr. Killquick looked at him contemptuously.
“No, I should rather hope not,” replied Cradock, meeting him eye to eye, so that the wholesale smasher quailed at him; “there is no duty, even in a powder–mill, which I would shrink from now.”
“Ah, terrible things, those powder–mills! A perfect disgrace to this age and country, their wanton waste of human life. How the Legislature lets them go on so, is more than I can conceive. Why, they think no more of murdering and maiming a dozen people——”
“Please, sir,” cried one of the clerks, coming down from the telegraph office, “no end of a collision on the Slayham and Bury Branch. Three passengers killed, and twenty–five wounded, some of them exceedingly fatally.”