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It was sufficient to know that while they were proceeding, the concourse without still lingered round the house; that boys beat upon the drum with their fists, and imitated Punch with their tender voices; that the office-window was rendered opaque by flattened noses, and the key-hole of the street-door luminous with eyes; that every time the single gentleman or either of his guests was seen at the upper window, or so much as the end of one of their noses was visible, there was a great shout of execration from the excluded mob, who remained howling and yelling, and refusing consolation, until the exhibitors were delivered up to them to be attended elsewhere.
A light shone from the office-window, and there being no blind to screen the interior Henchard could see Donald Farfrae still seated where he had left him, initiating himself into the managerial work of the house by overhauling the books. Henchard entered, merely observing, "Don't let me interrupt you, if ye will stay so late."
Faster than ship ever sailed, or wind blew, or light flashed, the thought of Lawrence Newt darted, and the merchant, seemingly leaning against his office-window in South Street, was really sitting under palm-trees, or dandling in a palanquin, or chatting in a strange tongue, or gazing in awe upon snowier summits than the villagers of Chamouni have ever seen.
His looks are very solicitous, importing much haste and dispatch: he is never without his hands full of business, that is of paper. His skin becomes at last as dry as his parchment, and his face as intricate as the most winding cause. He talks statutes as fiercely as if he had mooted seven years in the inns of court, when all his skill is stuck in his girdle, or in his office-window.
What reason had she for supposing that from his office-window he would see her the instant she turned the corner of Granby street and walked down the avenue fronting the parade-ground? No reason of course; but this had happened so many times that the meeting of the two somewhere in this vicinity was daily predicted by the wise prophets of the street.
But the police, with a devotion to duty that was beyond praise, kept the mob in check and themselves bore the brunt of the lingering acid. Only one man, who leaped from an office-window with an improvised parachute, really succeeded in getting into the middle of the Boulevard, and he refused to be ejected on the ground that he was chief of the street-cleaning department.
The farmer's boy could sit under his barley-mow and pitch a stone into the office-window of the town-clerk; reapers at work among the sheaves nodded to acquaintances standing on the pavement-corner; the red-robed judge, when he condemned a sheep-stealer, pronounced sentence to the tune of Baa, that floated in at the window from the remainder of the flock browsing hard by; and at executions the waiting crowd stood in a meadow immediately before the drop, out of which the cows had been temporarily driven to give the spectators room.
"Now, if you would like to sit down, why not go around to the other side and away from this crowd? There are empty benches at the stage-office. I must run, sir; so good-night, and many thanks." The office-window had just been thrown open and the distribution was just begun. It would be some time before his turn would come.
Well, instead of writing any more letters about the Works, do you know what it would be exactly like him to do now?" "Throw a bomb in at papa's office-window?" "No, speak to you about it!" laughed Henrietta, unabashed "some time when he sees you at Mr. Beirne's or somewhere ask you in the nicest, most natural way to ask Uncle Thornton if he won't build a new Works!
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