He had a high
falsetto voice, fingers that were always picking, like eager hens, at the
buttons on his waistcoat or the little waxed moustache above his mouth, and
hair that occupied its time in covering a bald patch that always escaped
every design upon it. So much for Mr. Aitchinson. Let him be flattered
sufficiently and Peter saw that his way would be easy. The wizened little
creature had, moreover, a certain admiration for Peter's strength and
broad shoulders and used sometimes in the middle of the morning's work
to ask Peter how much he weighed, whether he'd ever considered taking up
prize-fighting as a profession, and how much he measured across the chest.
There were two other youths, articled like Peter, stupid sons of honest
Treliss householders, with high collars, faces that shone with soap and
hair that glistened with oil, languid voices and a perpetual fund of small
talk about the ladies of the town, moral and otherwise. Peter did not
like them and they did not like Peter. One day, because he was tired and
unhappy, he knocked their heads together, and they plotted to destroy him,
but they were afraid, and secretly admired what they called his coarse
habits.
The Summer stole away and Autumn crept into its place, and at the end of
October something occurred. Something suddenly happened at Scaw House that
made action imperative, and filled his brain all day so that Aitchinson's
office and his work there was only a dream and the people in it were
shadows.
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