Padiham was in his shop at work. No mistaking him. A stunted, iron-gray man, not misshapen, but only shut together, like a one-barrelled opera-glass.
A very impressive head was Padiham’s. No harm had been done to that by whatever force had driven in his legs and shut his ribs together. His head was full grown. In contrast with his body, it seemed even overgrown. His hair and beard were iron-gray. He had those heavy, square eyebrows that compel the eyes from roving, and shut them down upon the matter in hand, so that it cannot escape. Not a man, this, to err on facts or characters. A pretender person, a sham fact, he would test at once and dismiss. Short’s Cut-off had never met a sterner critic than this man with the square forehead and firm nose.
He was hard at work at a bench, low according to his stature, filing at some fine machinery. The shop was filled with a rich sunny duskiness. Here and there surfaces of polished brass sparkled. Sunbeams, striking through the dim windows, glinted upon bits of bright steel strewn about. I perceived the clear pungent odor of fresh steel filings, very grateful after the musty streets, seething in June sunshine and the exhalations of the noisome Thames. It was a scene of orderly disorder, ruled by the master-workman there.
Padiham had, of course, observed my entrance. He took no notice of me, and continued his work.
I held my station near the door. I did not wish to spoil his job by the jar of an interruption. Besides, I thought it as well to let him speak first. I was prepared for an odd man; he might make the advances, if he pleased.
Padiham went on filing, in a grim, intelligent way. I glanced about the shop.
There were models all about of machines, some known, some strange to me; disconnected portions of inventions lying side by side, and wanting only a bolt or a screw to be organized and ready to rush at pumping, or lifting, or dragging, or busy duty of some useful kind. There was store, too, of interesting rubbish,—members of futile models, that could not do busy duty of their kind for some slight error, and worth careful study as warnings; for failure with mechanics is the schoolmaster of success. Drawings of engines hung all about the walls. As guardian genius of the spot, there was a portrait of that wise, benignant face of my friend of this morning, that great engineer who had directed me hither.
Apart in a dusky corner, by the chimney and forge, hung two water-color drawings in neat gilt frames. They were perhaps a little incongruous with the scenery of the gnome’s cavern. I did not, of course, expect to find here a portrait of a truculent bruiser or a leering bar-maid. Beery journeymen keep such low art hanging before them to seduce them from any ambition to become master hands and beguile them back of beer. Padiham would of course need drawings of models and machines, and enjoy them; but I did not look for Art proper in his shop. There, however, in the dim background, hung the two cheerful drawings, in their neat frames. They renewed and repeated the feeling which the gay roses in the upper windows had given me. My fancy supplied a link between the drawings and the flowers. They infused a pleasant element of refinement into the work-a-day atmosphere of the shop.
One of these drawings—I could just faintly distinguish their subject, and not the skill, greater or less, of their handling—was a view of an old brick many-gabled manor-house on a lawn dotted with stately oaks. Its companion—and the light hardly permitted me to decipher it—seemed to be a group of people seated on the grass, and a horse bending over them. I glanced at these objects as my eye made the tour of the shop; but my head was filled with Short’s Cut-off and this grim dwarf before me.
Presently Padiham laid down his file, and took up a pair of pincers from the confusion on his bench. He gave a bit of wire a twist, and, as he did so, looked at me. The square eyebrows seemed to hold me stiff, while he inspected. He studied my face, and then measured me from top to toe. There was a slight expression of repellence in his features, as if he thought, “This big fellow probably fancies that his long legs make him my master; we’ll try a match.”