第12章

Philpot was about fifty-five years old.He wore no white jacket, only an old patched apron; his trousers were old, very soiled with paint and ragged at the bottoms of the legs where they fell over the much-patched, broken and down-at-heel boots.The part of his waistcoat not protected by his apron was covered with spots of dried paint.He wore a coloured shirt and a `dickey' which was very soiled and covered with splashes of paint, and one side of it was projecting from the opening of the waistcoat.His head was covered with an old cap, heavy and shining with paint.He was very thin and stooped slightly.Although he was really only fifty-five, he looked much older, for he was prematurely aged.

He had not been getting his own back for quite five minutes when Hunter softly turned the handle of the lock.Philpot immediately put out his pipe and descending from his perch opened the door.When Hunter entered Philpot closed it again and, mounting the steps, went on stripping the wall just above.Nimrod looked at him suspiciously, wondering why the door had been closed.He looked all round the room but could see nothing to complain of.He sniffed the air to try if he could detect the odour of tobacco, and if he had not been suffering a cold in the head there is no doubt that he would have perceived it.However, as it was he could smell nothing but all the same he was not quite satisfied, although he remembered that Crass always gave Philpot a good character.

`I don't like to have men working on a job like this with the door shut,' he said at length.`It always gives me the idear that the man's 'avin a mike.You can do what you're doin' just as well with the door open.'

Philpot, muttering something about it being all the same to him - shut or open - got down from the steps and opened the door.Hunter went out again without making any further remark and once more began crawling over the house.

Owen was working by himself in a room on the same floor as Philpot.

He was at the window, burning off with a paraffin torch-lamp those parts of the old paintwork that were blistered and cracked.

In this work the flame of the lamp is directed against the old paint, which becomes soft and is removed with a chisel knife, or a scraper called a shavehook.The door was ajar and he had opened the top sash of the window for the purpose of letting in some fresh air, because the atmosphere of the room was foul with the fumes of the lamp and the smell of the burning paint, besides being heavy with moisture.

The ceiling had only just been water washed and the walls had just been stripped.The old paper, saturated with water, was piled up in a heap in the middle of the floor.

Presently, as he was working he began to feel conscious of some other presence in the room; he looked round.The door was open about six inches and in the opening appeared a long, pale face with a huge chin, surmounted by a bowler hat and ornamented with a large red nose, a drooping moustache and two small, glittering eyes set very close together.For some seconds this apparition regarded Owen intently, then it was silently withdrawn, and he was again alone.He had been so surprised and startled that he had nearly dropped the lamp, and now that the ghastly countenance was gone, Owen felt the blood surge into his own cheeks.He trembled with suppressed fury and longed to be able to go out there on the landing and hurl the lamp into Hunter's face.

Meanwhile, on the landing outside Owen's door, Hunter stood thinking.

Someone must be got rid of to make room for the cheap man tomorrow.

He had hoped to catch somebody doing something that would have served as an excuse for instant dismissal, but there was now no hope of that happening.What was to be done? He would like to get rid of Linden, who was now really too old to be of much use, but as the old man had worked for Rushton on and off for many years, Hunter felt that he could scarcely sack him off hand without some reasonable pretext.

Still, the fellow was really not worth the money he was getting.

Sevenpence an hour was an absurdly large wage for an old man like him.

It was preposterous: he would have to go, excuse or no excuse.

Hunter crawled downstairs again.

Jack Linden was about sixty-seven years old, but like Philpot, and as is usual with working men, he appeared older, because he had had to work very hard all his life, frequently without proper food and clothing.His life had been passed in the midst of a civilization which he had never been permitted to enjoy the benefits of.But of course he knew nothing about all this.He had never expected or wished to be allowed to enjoy such things; he had always been of opinion that they were never intended for the likes of him.He called himself a Conservative and was very patriotic.

At the time when the Boer War commenced, Linden was an enthusiastic jingo: his enthusiasm had been somewhat damped when his youngest son, a reservist, had to go to the front, where he died of fever and exposure.When this soldier son went away, he left his wife and two children, aged respectively four and five years at that time, in his father's care.After he died they stayed on with the old people.The young woman earned a little occasionally by doing needlework, but was really dependent on her father-in-law.Notwithstanding his poverty, he was glad to have them in the house, because of late years his wife had been getting very feeble, and, since the shock occasioned by the news of the death of her son, needed someone constantly with her.

Linden was still working at the vestibule doors when the manager came downstairs.Misery stood watching him for some minutes without speaking.At last he said loudly: