brushes, filed the papers and exchanges, ran all the errands, greased the machinery. He helped the foreman to make up, and he learned to set type and to follow copy. And all these things he did as if the world moved only because they were done.
“What a gorgeous boy,” said Valerie to Bob at the end of the second day. “This place is a continuous revel for him.”
“Yes, and you’ll be part of the revel soon.”
“Well, that won’t hurt him,” she retorted.
II
Valerie was alone in the building at four o’clock the following Saturday afternoon for Bob had gone off to report a dairy conference, and the staff had also gone, as they did at the week-end when possible, since it was not a publishing day. She had just smiled the last of them out with the comfortable feeling that she would have no antagonisms there. From the first day she had regarded them as co-workers with herself, and her friendly attitude had been returned with good measure. She knew that the foreman Ryder, and the jobbing-man Johnson, and the leading woman typesetter, Miss Hands, who had all been brought from Auckland, were sophisticated artisans ready to jump at the first pin prick, but because she had read history with insight, and understood the background that had contributed to their sensitiveness, and because she had in herself no class consciousness, she met them frankly on the ground of common interest, eager to learn all they could teach her.
And she had won their gratitude by insisting that awnings be provided for the windows of the composing-room, a matter Bob had let slide.
Valerie leaned back in her chair stretching herself. She
