"I 'ear you've been a carpenter," the foreman began.
"Funny 'ow rumours do get about," remarked Bindle pleasantly. "I remember when my brother-in-law, 'Earty's 'is name--ever met him? Quaint ole bird, 'Earty.--Well, when 'e----"
"Never mind 'im," returned the foreman, "can you 'andle a screw-driver?"
"'Andle any think except a woman. Married yerself?" Bindle interrogated with significance.
Ignoring the question the foreman continued: "Can you take the numbers off them rosy doors in the east corridor, and put 'em back again to-night without makin' a stutterin' row?"
"I got to go to a funeral," continued the foreman, avoiding Bindle's eye, "an' I want to get a bit o' sleep first."
"Funny things, funerals," he remarked casually. "Goin' to 'ave a cornet on the 'earse?"
"The last time I went to a funeral the guv'nor saw me on the box, next to Ole 'Arper, and all the boys a-shoutin' somethink about 'Ope and Glory. The ole guv'nor didn't ought to 'ave been out so early. Ole 'Arper could play; 'e'd wake a 'ole village while another man was thinkin' about it," he added reminiscently.
"It's my mother wot's dead," said the foreman dully, unequal to the task of stemming the tide of Bindle's loquacity and at the same time keeping on good terms with him.
"Yer mother? I'm sorry. Buryin' 'is mother twice got 'Oly Jim into an 'orrible mess. He fixed 'er funeral for February--all serene; but wot must he go an' do, the silly 'Uggins, but forget all about it and start a-buryin' of 'er again in June. 'Is guv'nor used to keep a book o' buryin's, and it took Jim quite a long time to explain that 'is buryin' of 'er twice all come about through 'im bein' a twin."
The foreman's impatience was visibly growing. "Never you mind about Jim, 'oly or otherwise. Can yer take off and put on again them numbers?"
Then after a pause he added casually, nodding in the direction of a cupboard in the corner:
"There's a couple of bottles o' beer and some bread an' cheese an' pickles in that cupboard."
Bindle's face brightened, and thus it was that the bargain was struck.
When Bindle left the room it was with the knowledge that his superior had been delivered into his hands. He did not then know exactly how he intended to compass the foreman's downfall. Inspiration would come later. It was sufficient for him to know that correction was to be administered where correction was due.