The Blind Side Read Online Free

in my job I’ll do, and what’s in other people’s jobs I’ll see to it that they do, or the worse for them, but that there Pyne in number one, do you know what he arst me to do no further back than yesterday? ‘Rush,’ he says, ’your boots is that ’eavy they jar my nerves. Couldn’t you wear slippers in the ’ouse?’ he says. Laying back in his chair he was, with smelling-salts in his ’and. And I says, ‘I could, Mr. Pyne, but I ain’t going to. It ain’t part of the job,’ I says. What’s he think I am—sick-nurse or summat?” He gave a short angry laugh.
    Lee had an entertaining vision of Rush in a starched cap. She said consolingly,
    â€œWell, you’ve still got Mr. Pyne, and this floor’s full—me in here, and Ross in number eight, and Peter in number nine. Quite a nice little family party, aren’t we?”
    Rush stumped out of the room into the hall.
    â€œI’ve not got nothing against Mr. Peter,” he said. “Mr. Ross, he’ll go too far one of these days.”
    Ross seemed to have been making himself popular. Rush grumbled at everyone, but there was something harsher than a grumble in his voice now.
    She said lightly, “Don’t start quarrelling with your bread and butter,” and saw the old man fling round with a jerk.
    â€œBread and butter?” he said. “That’s all some folks think about! There’s time I feel as if Mr. Ross’s bread ’ud choke me, and I’ll be telling him so one of these days—or choking him .”
    In spite of the heat a little cold shiver ran over Lee. The outer door of the flat stood half open, and as she shivered she heard a step go by. It went past, and it stopped. A latch clicked, a door banged. Lee ran across and shut her own.
    â€œOh, Rush, how stupid you are!” she said in a scolding voice. “Why do you want to say things like that at the top of your voice for everyone to hear? If that was Ross, what’s the odds he heard what you said? You’ve torn it properly!”
    The old man stood there glowering.
    â€œIt might be Mr. Ross or it mightn’t. How do I care what he heard? Didn’t I say I’d be telling him one of these days? If he goes too far, he goes too far. And if he heard what I said, he’s welcome!”
    â€œWhy are you so angry with him? What’s he been doing?”
    Rush elbowed her away from the door in his rudest and most determined manner.
    â€œNothing I’d be likely to talk about to you!” he said, and went stumping out, and down the stairs.
    She could hear him muttering to himself all the way to the next flight. She wondered more than ever what Ross had done to offend him. Of course it was very easy to offend Rush. He had been porter there for thirty years, and considered that the place belonged to him. He remembered John Peter Craddock, and he had served John David. The present owner had never been anything more than Mr. Ross, and if he disapproved of Mr. Ross he could see no reason why he shouldn’t say so.
    Ross wouldn’t be so stupid as to take it seriously—Ross couldn’t. But Ross was turning Cousin Lucy out. If he could do that …
    Lee frowned and went to shut the door, but before she could do anything about it there was a knock and a deprecating cough. Instead of shutting the door she opened it, and beheld the limp, dejected form of Mrs. Green.
    Twenty years ago Mrs. Green would have been described as a char. Now she aspired to the title of caretaker, but after one severe trouncing from Rush at the beginning of her engagement three months previously she had had to fall back upon the useful compromise of daily help. She scrubbed the stairs and cleaned the lift, very inefficiently according to Rush, who had been heard to describe her as a snivelling hen. She also “obliged” in several of the flats. She had a lachrymose voice, a good deal