`Do you think I'm a fool!' she exclaimed.
`Not at all. But you don't understand me, my dear.'
There was a pause between them.
`But you ought not to expose yourself,' she pleaded.
He shrugged his shoulders.
`The man in righteousness arrayed,
The pure and blameless live,
Needs not the keen Toledo blade,
Nor venom-freighted quiver,'
he quoted.
She looked at him searchingly.
`I wish I could understand you,' she said.
`There's simply nothing to understand,' he laughed.
She bowed her head, brooding.
He did not see Dawes for several days; then one morning as he ran upstairs from the spiral room he almost collided with the burly metal-worker.
`What the --!' cried the smith.
`Sorry!' said Paul, and passed on.
`Sorry!' sneered Dawes.
Paul whistled lightly, `Put Me among the Girls'.
`I'll stop your whistle, my jockey!' he said.
The other took no notice.
`You're goin' to answer for that job of the other night.'
Paul went to his desk in his corner, and turned over the leaves of the ledger.
`Go and tell Fanny I want order 097, quick!' he said to his boy.
Dawes stood in the doorway, tall and threatening, looking at the top of the young man's head.
`Six and five's eleven and seven's one-and-six,' Paul added aloud.
`An' you hear, do you!' said Dawes.
`Five and ninepence!' He wrote a figure. `What's that?' he said.
`I'm going to show you what it is,' said the smith.
The other went on adding the figures aloud.
`Yer crawlin' little --, yer daresn't face me proper!'