Paul resented being called `Thomas'. But he took the letters and returned to his dark place, where the counter made an angle, where the great parcel-rack came to an end, and where there were three doors in the corner. He sat on a high stool and read the letters--those whose handwriting was not too difficult. They ran as follows:
`Will you please send me at once a pair of lady's silk spiral thigh-hose, without feet, such as I had from you last year; length, thigh to knee, etc.' Or, `Major Chamberlain wishes to repeat his previous order for a silk non-elastic suspensory bandage.'
Many of these letters, some of them in French or Norwegian, were a great puzzle to the boy. He sat on his stool nervously awaiting the arrival of his `boss'. He suffered tortures of shyness when, at half-past eight, the factory girls for upstairs trooped past him.
Mr Pappleworth arrived, chewing a chlorodyne gum, at about twenty to nine, when all the other men were at work. He was a thin, sallow man with a red nose, quick, staccato, and smartly but stiffly dressed. He was about thirty-six years old. There was something rather `doggy', rather smart, rather 'cute and shrewd, and something warm, and something slightly contemptible about him.
`You my new lad?' he said.
Paul stood up and said he was.
`Fetched the letters?'
Mr Pappleworth gave a chew to his gum.
`Yes.'
`Copied 'em?'
`No.'
`Well, come on then, let's look slippy. Changed your coat?'
`No.'
`You want to bring an old coat and leave it here.' He pronounced the last words with the chlorodyne gum between his side teeth. He vanished into darkness behind the great parcel-rack, reappeared coatless, turning up a smart striped shirt-cuff over a thin and hairy arm. Then he slipped into his coat. Paul noticed how thin he was, and that his trousers were in folds behind. He seized a stool, dragged it beside the boy's, and sat down.
`Sit down,' he said.
Paul took a seat.
Mr Pappleworth was very close to him. The man seized the letters, snatched a long entry-book out of a rack in front of him, flung it open, seized a pen, and said:
`Now look here. You want to copy these letters in here.' He sniffed twice, gave a quick chew at his gum, stared fixedly at a letter, then went very still and absorbed, and wrote the entry rapidly, in a beautiful flourishing hand. He glanced quickly at Paul.
`See that?'
`Yes.'