“Is there anyone about?” inquired the perplexed new-comer.
“There’s Mrs ’Astings, doing the floors in Bickers’s.”
Mrs Hastings was duly summoned, and arrived with her broom and kneeling-pad.
“My good woman, can you tell me the fare from Blankington here?”
The lady looked perplexed, then embarrassed, then angry.
“And you fetched me over from Bickers’s—me, with my lame foot, over the cobbles—to ask me that! You oughter be ashamed of yerself, young man. Ask the cabman; he knows.”
It was hopeless. Railsford assisted to unload the cab, and meekly gave the cabman the fare demanded.
“I am Mr Railsford, the new master,” said he presently, overtaking Mrs Hastings, as she hobbled back in dudgeon to her work; “which are my rooms?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. You’re a day too early. All the rooms is up, and it will take us all our times to get them done against the school comes back to-morrow.”
“It is an extraordinary thing,” said Railsford, who began to feel his dignity somewhat put upon, “that Dr Ponsford should tell me to come to-day, and that no preparations—”