Page:Stanwood Pier--The ancient grudge.djvu/85

74 you remind me of it, my dear," he said, "I do recollect some infirmities of spirit—I will not say of temper—on your part, which I should otherwise have forgotten. But just the same, Floyd,"—and he spoke loudly behind his hand,—"your grandmother was quite a nice, attractive girl. What did you say is the landlady's name?"

"Bell," said Floyd. "Mrs. Edward Bell."

"We will look it up in the card-catalogue after dinner," his grandfather promised.

This card-catalogue was perhaps the crowning achievement of Colonel Halket's genius—or insanity—for organization. It required a room for itself. The name of every man who had ever worked in any capacity in the Halket Mills was registered; also his record—his time of entering employment, his promotions if any, his time of leaving the mills if he had left them, the cause, and, when it was known, his occupation since. When a man died his card was not removed; it remained to record the history of his family. The catalogue contained more than fifteen thousand names—all the past and present employees of the works. Once a month the registrar of the company came to Colonel Halket's house to go over the list, make such additions or corrections as he could, and bring it up to date.

After dinner, Floyd accompanied his grandparents into the long, high-raftered library. Books lined one side from floor to top, and their bright bindings and the leather chairs of cardinal red that were set about the great mahogany table gave the room a tone of warmth and cheerfulness. Here Colonel Halket read his evening newspaper, his wife took up a magazine, and Floyd, having mounted the little movable ladder, found on the top book-shelf "Richard Feverel,"—the novel that he had already been through three times. With the book in his hand he stopped by his grandmother's chair to whisper in her ear the humorous query that had occurred to him during dinner; she laughed a little, but with an apprehensive glance