No Silver Spoon by Flynn Katie

Author:Flynn, Katie [Flynn, Katie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Elsie Taylor finished polishing the last apple on the display at the back of the counter and looked hopefully across at her employer. He was a cross-grained elderly man by the name of Josiah Cannell, not an easy man to work for, but it was past eight o’clock and the April evening was already darkening. Besides, she was only paid to work until seven – surely he would let her go now? She cleared her throat. ‘Ah-hem … Mr Cannell, sir, I done all them apples just like you said. They’re like perishin’ mirrors, honest to God they are, you can see your bl … I mean you can see your face in ’em. Can I go now?’

Mr Cannell was sitting on a tall stool behind the counter, totting up figures in a large ledger. He tutted at her and put his fingers in his ears just to prove, Elsie supposed crossly, that he was far too busy to listen to a chit of a thing like her. But experience had already taught her that he could make life very unpleasant for his staff if he took against one of them, so she sighed patiently and waited until he had finished adding up and had ruled a neat double line beneath the final figure. Only then did he look up and poke his spectacles further down his nose so that he could see her over the top of them. ‘Yes, Miss Taylor?’ he said in a mean, whining voice. ‘How many times do I have to tell you not to interrupt me when I’m addin’ up?’

It didn’t seem worth repeating all her earlier remarks so Elsie just said: ‘Can I go now, sir? It’s past eight and I’m only paid till …’

‘Have you finished polishin’ them apples?’ Mr Cannell said sharply, proving either that she had not interrupted his adding up of the figures or that he was completely stone deaf. ‘As for time-keepin’, I clearly remember tellin’ you when you took the job that I’d no hintention of employin’ a clock watcher and you assured me …’

Elsie thought of the meagre wages she was reluctantly paid each Saturday night and of the overtime she was forced to work. Then she remembered his constant nagging and seriously wondered whether to throw discretion to the winds, together with this altogether horrible little job. He took it for granted that she would willingly go upstairs and clean his kitchen before making them a couple of jam sarnies and a cuppa at noon, and then had the cheek to take sixpence off her weekly wage for what he termed ‘them dinners’. There were no perks here, either, not so much as a bag of fades to take home to her mum or a ha’penny knocked off the price of a cabbage. Oh, how she would love to give him a piece of her mind and let him search for some other poor kid to do his dirty work! But it was possible

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