“Devil blast him!” muttered Mrs. Flynn as she fetched from a cupboard shelf a sour-looking bottle labelled Writing Fluid, a dissolute pen, and requested Johnny to compose a letter to Stringer—devil blast him!—telling him of the plight of her daughter Pomona Flynn, about whom she desired him to know that she had already consulted her lawyers and the chief of police and intimating that unless she heard from him satisfactory by the day after tomorrow the matter would pass out of her hands.
“That’s no good, it’s not the way,” declared her son thoughtfully; Mrs. Flynn therefore sat humbly confronting him and awaited the result of his cogitations. Johnny was not a very robust youth, but he was growing fast now, since he had taken up with running; he was very fleet, so Mrs. Flynn understood, and had already won a silver-plated hot water jug, which they used for the milk. But still he was thin and not tall, his dark hair was scattered; his white face was a nice face, thought Mrs. Flynn, very nice, only there was always something strange about his clothes. She couldn’t help that now, but he had such queer fancies, there was no other boy in the street whose trousers were so baggy or of such a colour. His starched collars were all right of course, beautifully white and shiny, she got them up herself, and they set his neck off nicely.
“All we need do,” her son broke in, “is just tell him.”
“Tell him?”
“Yes, just tell him about it—it’s very unfortunate—and ask him to come and see you. I hope, though,” he paused, “I hope they won’t want to go and get married.”
“He ought to be made to, devil blast him,” cried Mrs. Flynn, “only she’s frightened, she is; afraid of her mortal life of him! We don’t want him here, neither, she says he’s a nasty horrible man.”
Johnny sat dumb for some moments. Pomona was a day girl in service at a restaurant. Stringer was a clerk to an auctioneer. The figure of his pale little sister shrinking before a ruffian (whom he figured as a fat man with a red beard) startled and stung him.
“Besides,” continued Mrs. Flynn, “he’s just going to be married to some woman, some pretty judy, God help her ... in fact, as like as not he’s married to her already by now. No, I gave up that idea long ago, I did, before I told you, long ago.”
“We can only tell him about Pomony then, and ask him what he would like to do.”
“What he would like to do, well, certainly!” protested the widow.