24 ANGEL PAVEMENT

nasty work, that is. Shadderin'l I'd shadder yer if I
caught yer at it, my words I would." And Mrs. Cross
took up her brash and dust-pan and gave them a fierce
little shake, almost as if she had just caught them at it.

"Now you just get on with yer work like a good boy,
and don't you go tellin' anybody else yer want to be
shadderin' else yer'll be gettin' yerself into trouble.
Yer can't expect people to 'ave any patience with shad-
derers. If Mr. Dersingham knew what was goin' on in
that 'ead of yours, 'e'd tell yer to go straight 'ome and
'ave nothing more to do with yer, and yer'd find yerself
shadderin' for another job, and that's all the shadderin'
you'd get."

Stanley turned away, and then pulled a face, not so
much at Mrs. Cross as at the whole narrow school of
thought represented at this moment by Mrs. Cross. He
went to the letter-box and brought back the morning s
post, which he placed on the nearest high desk. There
he remembered something, and looked with a grin at
Mrs. Cross, who was now having a final bustle round.

"Did you see that note left for you?" he enquired.

Mrs. Cross suspended operations at once. "Yes, I
did see it, and if yer want to know where it is, I can tell
yer, 'cos it's in that stove." She struck an attitude that
suggested a counsel for the prosecution of the high-
handed type. ''And oo, might I ask, left that there
note? Oo wrote it? Just you tell me that, that's all?"

"Miss Matfield wrote it."

"An' I thought as much. Soon as I set eyes on it.
I knew. Miss Matfield wrote it! Miss Matfield!"
Her irony was now so terrible that she shook all over
with it, and her head seemed in danger of falling off.
"And 'ow long, might I ask, 'as Miss Matfield been in