'Feel of my hands, young man,' he said.
'What for?' asked Mark, declining.
'Air they dirty, or air they clean, sir?' said Scadder, holding them
out.
In a physical point of view they were decidedly dirty. But it being
obvious that Mr Scadder offered them for examination in a figurative
sense, as emblems of his moral character, Martin hastened to pronounce
them pure as the driven snow.
'I entreat, Mark,' he said, with some irritation, 'that you will
not obtrude remarks of that nature, which, however harmless and
well-intentioned, are quite out of place, and cannot be expected to be
very agreeable to strangers. I am quite surprised.'
'The Co.'s a-putting his foot in it already,' thought Mark. 'He must be
a sleeping partner--fast asleep and snoring--Co. must; I see.'
Mr Scadder said nothing, but he set his back against the plan, and
thrust his toothpick into the desk some twenty times; looking at Mark
all the while as if he were stabbing him in effigy.
'You haven't said whose work it is,' Martin ventured to observe at
length, in a tone of mild propitiation.
'Well, never mind whose work it is, or isn't,' said the agent sulkily.
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