Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/32

 The chair nearest him needed the hands of an upholsterer. Moreover, the place had a distinctive and stuffy smell.

Sorrell approached the office window, and as he did so a man appeared at the doorway of the "Cubby Hole." His suffused and injected eyes sighted Sorrell.

"Good morning, sir."

"Good morning," said Sorrell.

The man was in his shirt sleeves, unshaven, and his close-cropped head glistened white between his heavy shoulders; in fact his head seemed attached directly to his broad, short body without the interposition of a neck. His shortness made his bulk more evident, and even the effort of speaking appeared to render him short of breath, for Sorrell saw the labouring of the ballooned waistcoat. The man was not old, and yet he made Sorrell think of some poor, obese, mangy old god with bleared eyes and panting flanks.

"What can I do for you, sir?"

His bluffness had a certain pathos. He appeared the master, a hearty, loud voiced creature, and he was nothing but an obedient sot.

"Mrs. Palfrey told me to call. It's about."

"About what?"

"She is needing a man."

"Oh,—ah,—that's it."

The brain behind the blotched face functioned very slowly, nor did the suffused blue eyes express any emotion. They did not change their look of solemn obfuscation.

The man moved to the door on which "The Cubby Hole" was painted in black letters. He opened it.

"Flo."

"Hallo."

"Someone to see you, a fellow after Tom's place."

"Show him in."

As Sorrell responded to the gesture of a fat hand he divined the fact that this poor, rotten shell of a man—the bruised and swollen fruit—was Florence Palfrey's husband.

He closed the door and stood by it, holding his hat in his hand. It was a darkish room, with one window looking out upon a yard, and beneath the window ran a long sofa