'There's plenty of time for that in the dinner hour!' Nimrod now went down to the drawing-room, which Easton and Owen had been painting.

He stood here deep in thought for some time, mentally comparing the quantity of work done by the two men in this room with that done by Sawkins in the attics.

Misery was not a painter himself: he was a carpenter, and he thought but little of the difference in the quality of the work: to him it was all about the same: just plain painting.
'I believe it would pay us a great deal better,' he thought to himself, 'if we could get hold of a few more lightweights like Sawkins.' And with his mind filled with this reflection he shortly afterwards sneaked stealthily from the house..