squares
were not very true in shape: they had evidently warped in drying after
manufacture: to make them match anything like properly would need
considerable time and care. But the men were not allowed to take the
necessary time. The result was that when it was finished it presented
a sort of 'higgledy-piggledy' appearance. But it didn't matter:
nothing seemed to matter except to get it done. One would think from
the way the hands were driven and chivvied and hurried over the work
that they were being paid five or six shillings an hour instead of as
many pence.

'Get it done!' shouted Misery from morning till night. 'For God's sake
get it done! Haven't you finished yet? We're losing money over this
"job"! If you chaps don't wake up and move a bit quicker, I shall see
if I can't get somebody else who will.'

These costly embossed decorations were usually finished in white; but
instead of carefully coating them with specially prepared paint of
patent distemper, which would need two or three coats, they slobbered
one thick coat of common whitewash on to it with ordinary whitewash
brushes.

This was a most economical way to get over it, because it made it
unnecessary to stop up the joints beforehand--the whitewash filled up
all the cracks: and it also filled up the hollow parts, the crevices
and interstices of the ornament, destroying the sharp outlines of the
beautiful designs and reducing the whole to a lumpy, formless mass. But
that did not matter either, so long as they got it done.

The architect didn't notice it, because he knew that the more Rushton &
Co. made out of the 'job', the more he himself would make.

The man who had to pay for the work didn't notice it; he had the
fullest confidence in the architect.

At the risk of wearying the long-suffering reader, mention must be made
of an affair that happened at this particular 'job'.

The windows were all fitted with venetian blinds. The gentleman for
whom all the work was being done had only just purchased the house, but
he preferred roller blinds: he had had roller blinds in his former
residence--which he had just sold--and as these roller blinds were
about the right size, he decided to have them fitted to the windows of
his new house: so he instructed Mr Rushton to have all the venetian
blinds taken down and stored away up in the loft under the roof. Mr
Rushton promised to have this done; but they were not ALL put away
under the roof: he had fou