"What!" cried he in astonishment, drawing up again in front of the charwoman, now somewhat cowed by Crawford's abrupt, and vigorous, and abstracted manner. "Don't you call six feet a tall man? Have you lived among Patagonians all your life?"
"No, sir; I can't say I ever lived with any people of that name," she said, bridling a little. She did not understand being spoken to by any one in that peremptory and belittling way, and if all came to all it wasn't the rich Mr. Crawford who paid her and supplied the food she had eaten, but poor Mr. Layard, who gave himself no airs, but was always a pleasant gentleman, though he was not in the counting-house of the great Welford Gas Company, but in the works, where her own husband was employed.
"Why, don't you consider a man four inches taller than I a tall man?" cried Crawford, drawing brows down over his quick furtive eyes, and looking at the woman as if he was reproaching her with having committed a heinous crime.
"Four inches taller than you!" said the woman with scornful asperity. "I never said he was four inches taller than you, sir. He isn't four inches taller than you, Mr. Crawford."
"He is."
"Excuse me, sir; if you tell me so, of course I have nothing more to say," said Mrs. Grainger, rising with severity and dignity. "The gentleman that lives on Poland's Ait is a shorter man than you, sir."
"Are you sure?" said Crawford, standing for the third time in front of the woman.
"Quite certain."
"Shorter than I?" said he, in a tone of abstraction, as he gnawed his knuckles, unconscious of her presence--"shorter than I?" he repeated, lost in thought. "Then he can't be Philip Ray," he cried in a tone of relief. The words were uttered, not for Mrs. Grainger's hearing, but for his own. He wanted to have this pleasant assurance in his ear as well as in his mind.
"I never said he was, sir; I said he was Mr. Bramwell--Mr. Francis Bramwell," said Mrs. Grainger, making a mock courtesy and moving towards the door.