Sarah's School Friend Part 42

The clang of the gate as it shut after him struck painfully on his ears, and he went to the office and sat down to think. 'If only I knew what to do! Perhaps this room will inspire me,' he murmured. But the room did not seem to do so; on the contrary, he was oppressed with the sense of the failure in which all the business done in that room had ended.

Suddenly the door opened, and Sarah, dainty and fresh in the muslin Naomi had thoughtfully brought her, almost her only possession in the way of clothes, came in. 'George, I have an inspiration,' she said.

Her brother looked up with a smile. 'That's funny,' he replied, 'for that's just what I was sitting here waiting for.'

'That's a nice, useless thing to do!' said Sarah.

'On the contrary, it appears to have been answered,' he said.

'Oh, well, it wasn't your sitting there that made me come and have that inspiration; it was the clanging of Uncle Howroyd's bell. Why don't you do the same thing?' inquired Sarah.

'Do what?' demanded George, who did not think much of this inspiration.

'Ring the bell--the big bell, I mean--to call the hands in, just as if nothing had happened,' urged Sarah.

'Nothing would happen if I did, except that we should have a gaping crowd round the gate, and the fire-brigade coming to see if we had a fire. So, if that's your inspiration, I'm inclined to agree with you that my waiting for it has been useless,' returned George.

'I wish you'd try, George. I believe the hands would all come back, and we should get the contract done after all,' persisted Sarah. 'They looked at me in quite a friendly way as I pa.s.sed, and lots of the men touched their hats, a thing they never did before.'

George hesitated. 'But I don't feel that I could take them back again,'

he said.

'Then what do you mean to do? You can't run the mills with new hands,'

she protested.

'No; but I can't take back the men who have destroyed our property,' he declared.

'They are, or soon will be, taken up; so they won't apply,' began Sarah, when her brother interrupted her.

'Sarah,' he cried with sudden vigour, 'you have inspired me after all! I will have the bell rung, and when the people come, as some are sure to come, out of curiosity, I will make them a speech, and explain that those whom my father dismissed are still dismissed, but that the rest I shall be glad to have back. I'll speak to the manager, and see what he thinks.'

The manager and Ben looked admiringly at George.

'There's pluck for you! Let's hope it will be rewarded. At any rate, we can but try,' they said; and they gave orders for the big mills-bell to be rung, and the few faithful ones stood in the yard, making a kind of bodyguard round George, and waited for the curious crowd to arrive.

Sarah watched from the office window, and her eyes shone with excitement as she heard the sound of clogs and many footsteps coming down the street. 'I was right' she cried. 'It's our old hands! I knew they'd come.'

And they did come, till the mill-yard was packed, and then George made them a speech.

'My father is stricken down by the misdeeds of some of his former employes, and in his absence I am going, with the help of my good friends here, to run my father's mills. Those of you who voluntarily left his employ are welcome to return to it; those he discharged will not be admitted.'

Such, in brief, was the young man's speech. The hands noticed that he had not called them 'friends,' nor, indeed, had his tone been friendly, but only business-like and curt, in marked contradiction to the way he had spoken of 'my good friends here,' alluding to those who had remained at their posts. But they were just men, and they respected the young man all the more for bravely and boldly 'standing up to them,' and showing his loyalty to his father and those who had stood by his father.

Some few slunk away. They were those Mr Clay had discharged--an act which had brought about the strike. But this time their discharge was accepted.

Without exception the hands took up their old places; the engine, which had stopped, went on again; the fires, which had not yet gone out, were replenished; and before William Howroyd could get down to see what new misfortune this was, Clay's Mills had ceased to 'play.'

'Nay, my la.s.s, you can't be serious. Men are not a flock of sheep to come back to you just because the bell rings,' he protested when Sarah told him the tale.

'Just go into the rooms and see for yourself,' she said. 'They are all setting to work with a will.'

'But I meant to have a talk with George and try to arrange things,'

objected Mr Howroyd. 'One can't restart a business like this in this hap-hazard manner.'

'It's not hap-hazard; it's just natural. They're sorry for us and for everything, and they've just come back as if nothing had happened. I really think George is a born business man; he's quite left off being half-asleep all the time,' cried Sarah.

'It's my belief he's been more wide awake than we knew "all the time,"'

quoted her uncle.

'Anyway, he's quite wide awake now. And, oh! it's so funny to hear him when they come and ask him some questions he doesn't know anything about.

He puts up his pince-nez, looks very wise, and says, "You had better go on as you have always done for the present."'

Mr Howroyd pinched her cheek. 'You are far too wide awake, especially when it comes to criticising other people. Well, I expect I can go back to my own mill. I'm not wanted here. I shall soon be coming to your George for advice. Dear, dear! who would have thought it? He looked as if it was too much trouble to live. This bad business has done you both good--you as well as him, and you badly wanted some improvement, my la.s.s.

It'll be a proud day for your father when he hears what you have both done,' said Mr Howroyd as he went off, looking bright and cheery again.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

SARAH BECOMES A BUSINESS WOMAN.

Mr Howroyd had not been gone very long when George came in, his usually calm, unruffled brow puckered, and his face wearing a worried look. 'I say, Sarah, I'm afraid I've been very presumptuous in undertaking to carry on my father's business,' he said.

'What has happened? Aren't they behaving all right?' inquired Sarah, looking anxiously at him.

'Oh, the hands? Yes. Hurst, the manager, says they have come back in a good spirit, and are working all they know to get the contract done. He says he never saw smarter work,' George told her.

'Then I don't see what you are worrying about,' said Sarah, laughing, as she added, 'I expect they want to show that they are as good as any "Frenchies," as they call the foreigners.'

'But that isn't the trouble; it's father's customers and the people he has done business with. Some of them have called in and intimated pretty plainly that they don't mean to have any dealings with me,' he observed.

'How horrid of them! They might at least have waited to see how you got on,' exclaimed Sarah in great indignation.

'Well, it was rather my own fault. I suppose they can't afford to wait and see how things go in business. They began talking about business deals, and using all sorts of terms which, I suppose, are current in the wool-trade, and I let them see that I didn't understand anything about it,' said George.

His face was so melancholy and his forehead so wrinkled that Sarah burst into a hearty laugh.

'It's no laughing matter; it spells ruin to us if our clients--customers, I mean--fight shy of us, and we shall be worse off than if I had never meddled with the matter,' he said severely.

'I am very sorry, George; but I could not help it; it is so funny for you to be so worried and fidgety. Why didn't you say Uncle Howroyd would stand surety, and refer them to Hurst? He has been manager for years, and father used to say that Hurst knew as much about the business as he did himself. If I were you I'd get him to write a circular-letter to all those people, and say that in father's temporary absence from business he is managing for you by Mr Howroyd's advice.'

'I never thought of it. I'm very unfit for all this. I like the dyeing and the chemical part of the business; but what all these men said was Chinese to me. I wish you'd just tell me what some of these words mean,'

he said, as he sat down to the table and began questioning his sister.

'I can tell you a good deal, because, you see, I am always down at Uncle Howroyd's, and he lets me go into his office and talk to him while he is working. I've often seen the other merchants and buyers come in; but it seemed quite simple; they just ordered what they wanted, and Uncle Howroyd put the pieces on.'

'Put the pieces on what?' inquired George. 'Don't laugh; tell me what that means.'