I took Peter back, but did not deliver to him anything like an address, or a lecture, or a heart to heart talk. Instead I provided him with a duster, and a bottle of polish, and other articles constituting an outfit, and gave him brief instructions. Ten minutes later, I found him behind a leather screen, and resting on a settee; he was concentrating his attention upon literature that dealt with the Adventures of Gideon Smart, Detective. I placed the journal in the fire, and Peter supported the argument of heredity by weeping; I allowed him to cry, and, when he had finished, pointed to the tasks which awaited his consideration. Used to the companionship of words and plenty of them, my silence impressed him, and so soon as he had finished one job, I provided him with another. Peter submitted later some brass candlesticks for my approval, and was honoured with a guarded sentence for which he seemed acutely grateful.
"Excuse me, miss," he said, respectfully, "but you're not much of a conversationalist, are you?"
"I'm a worker."
"Couldn't it be managed, do you think, to run the two, so to speak, at one and the same time?"
"Work comes first," I said. Peter gave the sigh of a man who regrets the eccentric rules concerning business deportment.
Neighbours looked in from shops hard by, and told me that their own trades were doing badly, and would, in their opinion, do worse ere they did better. Having said this with much cheerfulness, they endeavoured to assume a compassionate air in giving the view that of all the trades none could expect to fare so ill, in these exceptional times, as that which dealt with furniture; they spoke of the condition of affairs in Shoreditch and Bethnal Green. Their knowledge was never first hand, but had come from a cousin of a friend who knew a person whose brother-in-law was something of an authority on the subject. Certain of the older ones spoke of the days that were prosperous at Greenwich, when visitors came to the Ship and the Trafalgar, and climbed the ascent in the Park, and strolled about the town, and bought mementoes and souvenirs.
"Fifty year ago," said a watchmaker to me, confidentially, "you might have made a do of it. Now, it's like throwing your money down a sink. Besides, you women-folk always get swindled right and left when you barge in to affairs of this kind. By the bye, I've got a couple of grandfather's clocks you might care to have a glance at when you're passing my way. They're almost genuine!"
A proportion of Millwood's stock was useful only as fire-wood, and the covered yard at the back received these articles, making a pile to be drawn upon during the winter months. The mere eviction of these improved the look of the shop; the greatest change was perhaps effected by the linoleum covering of the floor which gave a fair imitation of parquet, and received the care of Peter when there was nothing else for the lad to do. Folk, hurrying past on their way to the station, observed the altered appearance and stopped to give a few moments of inspection, and I hoped some of them would come in, and at least inquire the prices, or make an offer where the amount was exhibited. Not until three o'clock on the second day did the first customer enter. He was young, and I wondered why he was not in khaki. He seemed pressed for time.
"You a judge of furniture?"
"I am," I said.