Page 161 - sons-and-lovers

sory bandage.’
Many of these letters, some of them in French or Nor-
wegian, were a great puzzle to the boy. He sat on his stool
nervously awaiting the arrival of his ‘boss”. He suffered tor-
tures 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, stacca-
to, 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 some-
thing 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 pro-
nounced the last words with the chlorodyne gum between
his side teeth. He vanished into the 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

1 0 Sons and Lovers