TURG IS SEES HER 159

"Beg your pardon, Mr. Smeeth. Of course, you don't.
I do, though. Oo, it's sorful," cried Turgis earnestly.
'" 'S'not getting any better either. Well, I'm glad you
told me, Mr. Smeeth. I'd better keep my mouth shut
a bit, hadn't I? It is all right, now, isn't it?"

"Quite all right. You do your best for us," Mr.
Smeeth added, sententiously, "and we'll do our best for
you."

Turgis came nearer, and lowered his voice when he
spoke. "D'you think, Mr. Smeeth, there'll be any
chance of a rise, now I'm getting all this extra work?
Ought to be, oughtn't there? I mean, I'm not getting
a lot really/ am I?"

"You leave it alone a bit, Turgis, and just do your
best, and then I'll see what I can do for you."

"I wish you would, Mr. Smeeth. You see, it's not as
if I'd got anybody helping me with my work, 'cos this
new typist doesn't really help me out much, does she?
And if you could—just—you know—say something to Mr.
Golspie or Mr. Dersingham, because, you know, Mr.
Smeeth, I am doing my best, and you mustn't think I
want to grumble, 'cos I don't."

The new typist had been a great disappointment to
Turgis, not because she was of no assistance to him in
his work, but because she was not the attractive young
creature his heated fancy had conjured up to fill the post.
Miss Poppy Sellers, with her unfortunate Oriental effect
which merely resulted in dinginess and untidiness, did
not seem to him at all pretty. At the end of the first
morning, though he was flattered by her awe of him, he
had dismissed her as a very poor bit of girl stuff. When

he had heard that the firm was advertising for another

$ °

typist, a younger girl to help Miss Matfield. he had had