Sevenpence an hour was an absurdly large wage for an old man like him.
It was preposterous: he would have to go, excuse or no excuse.

Hunter crawled downstairs again.

Jack Linden was about sixty-seven years old, but like Philpot, and as
is usual with working men, he appeared older, because he had had to
work very hard all his life, frequently without proper food and
clothing. His life had been passed in the midst of a civilization
which he had never been permitted to enjoy the benefits of. But of
course he knew nothing about all this. He had never expected or
wished to be allowed to enjoy such things; he had always been of
opinion that they were never intended for the likes of him. He called
himself a Conservative and was very patriotic.

At the time when the Boer War commenced, Linden was an enthusiastic
jingo: his enthusiasm had been somewhat damped when his youngest son,
a reservist, had to go to the front, where he died of fever and
exposure. When this soldier son went away, he left his wife and two
children, aged respectively four and five years at that time, in his
father's care. After he died they stayed on with the old people. The
young woman earned a little occasionally by doing needlework, but was
really dependent on her father-in-law. Notwithstanding his poverty,
he was glad to have them in the house, because of late years his wife
had been getting very feeble, and, since the shock occasioned by the
news of the death of her son, needed someone constantly with her.

Linden was still working at the vestibule doors when the manager came
downstairs. Misery stood watching him for some minutes without
speaking. At last he said loudly: