V.
Breakfast was laid in a little sitting-room over the porch, adjoining his bedroom. George pressed the poor Rose into her basket; carried it in.
Mrs. Pinner was setting flowers on the table. George carried the basket to the window; placed it on a chair; sat upon it. With his right hand he drummed upon the lid. It was his purpose to inspire the Rose with a timid wonder at this drubbing that should prevent her voicing a protest against cramped limbs.
“Some nice tea and a bit of fish I'm going to bring you up, mister,” Mrs. Pinner told him.
Recollecting her deafness, and in fear lest she should approach the basket, George from the window bellowed: “Thank you, Mrs. Pinner. But I won't have tea, if you please. Won't have tea. I drink milk—milk. A lot of milk. I'm a great milk-drinker.”
The Rose wriggled. George thumped the basket. “As soon as you like, Mrs. Pinner. As quick as you like!”
Mrs. Pinner closed the door; the Rose advertised her feelings in a long, penetrating mi-aow. In an agony of strained listening George held his breath. But Mrs. Pinner heard nothing; moved steadily downstairs. He wiped his brow. This was the beginning of it.
When Mrs. Pinner reappeared, jug of milk and covered dish on a tray, George's plan, after desperate searchings, had come to him.
He gave it speech. “I want to arrange, Mrs. Pinner—”
“If you wait till I've settled the tray, mister, I'll come close to you. I'm that hard of hearing you wouldn't believe.”
George sprang from the basket; approached the table. His life depended upon keeping a distance between basket and Pinner.
“I want to arrange to have this room as a private sitting-room.”
It had never been so used before, but it could be arranged, Mrs. Pinner told him. She would speak to her 'usband about terms.
“And I want to keep it very private indeed, I don't want anyone to enter it unless I am here.” George mounted his lie and galloped it, blushing for shame of his steed. “The fact is, Mrs. Pinner, I'm an inventor. Yes, an inventor. Oh, yes, an inventor.” The wretched steed was stumbling, but he clung on; spurred afresh. “An inventor. And I have to leave things lying about—delicate instruments that mustn't be disturbed. Awfully delicate. I shall be out all day. I shall be taking my invention into the open air to experiment with it. My invention—” He waved his hand at the basket.
Mrs. Pinner quite understood; was impressed. “Oh, dear, yes, mister. To be sure. An inventor; fancy that, now!” She gazed at the basket. “And the invention is in there?”
“Right in there,” George assured her.
“You'll parding my asking, mister; but your saying you have to take it in the open hair—is it one of them hairships, mister?”
“Well, it is,” George said frankly. This was a useful idea and he approved it. “It is. It's an airship.”
“Well, I never did!” Mrs. Pinner admired, gazing at the basket. “A hairship in there!”
“Mi-aow!” spoke the Rose—penetrating, piercing.
Mrs. Pinner cocked her head on one side; looked under the table. “I declare I thought I heard a cat,” she puzzled. “In this very room.”
George felt perfectly certain that his hair was standing bolt upright on the top of his head, thrusting at right angles to the sides. He forced his alarmed face to smile: “A cock crowing in the yard, I think, Mrs. Pinner.”
Mrs. Pinner took the explanation with an apologetic laugh. “I'm that hard o' hearing you never would believe. But I could ha' sworn. Ill not keep you chattering, sir.” She raised the dish cover.
A haddock was revealed. A fine, large, solid haddock from which a cloud of strongly savoured vapour arose.
George foresaw disaster. That smell! that hungry cat! Almost he pushed Mrs. Pinner to the door. “That you, thank you. I have everything now. I will ring if—”
“Mi-aow!”
“Bless my soul!” Mrs. Pinner exclaimed. “There is a cat”; dropped on hands and knees; pushed her head beneath the sofa.
George rushed for the basket. Wreaking his craven alarm upon the hapless prisoner, he shook it; with a horrible bump slammed it upon the floor; placed his foot upon it.
Mrs. Pinner drew up, panting laboriously. “Didn't you hear a cat, mister?”
George grappled the crisis. “I did not hear a cat. If there were a cat I should have heard it. I should have felt it. I abominate cats. I can always tell when a cat is near me. There is no cat. Kindly leave me to my breakfast.”
Poor Mrs. Pinner was ashamed. “I'm sure I do beg you parding, mister. The fact is we've all got cats fair on the brain this morning. In this here new paper, mister, as perhaps you've seen, and they're giving us a free copy every day for a week, there's a cat been stole, mister. A hundred pounds reward, and as the paper says, the cat may be under your very nose. We're all a 'unting for it, mister.”
She withdrew. George crossed the room; pressed his head, against the cold marble of the mantelpiece. His brows were burning; in the pit of his stomach a sinking sensation gave him pain. “All a 'unting for it! all a 'unting for it!”
When the Rose had bulged her flanks with the complete haddock, when, responsive to a “Stuff your head in that, you brute,” the patient creature had lapped a slop-bowl full of milk, George again imprisoned her; rushed, basket under arm, for open country.
Mr. Pinner in the bar-parlour, as George fled through, was reading from a paper to a stable hand, a servant girl, and a small red-headed Pinner boy: “It may be in John o' Groats,” he read, “or it may be in Land's End.” He thumped the bar. “'Ear that! Well, it may be in Dippleford Admiral.”
It was precisely because it was in Dippleford Admiral that his young inventor lodger fled through the bar without so much as a civil “good morning.”
At the post-office, keeping a drumming foot on the terrified Rose, George sent a telegram to Mr. Marrapit.
“Think on track. Must be cautious. Don't tell Brunger.”
He flung down eightpence halfpenny; fled in the direction of a wood that plumed a distant hill. Fear had this man.