Alf stood before him, hang-dog and resentful.
"He'll kill me one of these days," he muttered. "Little better than a bloody murderer."
There was a moment's pause, marked by a snort from Mr. Pigott.
Then the jolly, cosy man, with his trim white beard and neat little paunch, rose and opened the window with some ostentation.
"First time that word's ever crossed my threshold," he said. "And I've lived in this house ten year come Michaelmas." He turned with dignity on the offender. "Is that what they teach you in the Church of England, then, Alfred Caspar?" he asked. "It wasn't what we taught you in the Wesleyan Chapel in which you was bred. Never heard the like of it for language in all me life—never!" Before everything else in life Mr. Pigott was a strong chapel-man; and in his judgment Ern's weakness was as nothing to Alf's apostasy.
Alf looked foolish and deprecatory.
"I didn't mean in it the swearin way," he said—"not as Ernest would have meant it. I never been in the Army meself. I only meant he'll be the end o me one of these days. Good as said he would in the Star Saturday."
Mr. Pigott turned away to hide the twinkle in his eye. He knew Alf well, and his weakness.
"He don't like you, I do believe," he admitted. "And he's a very funny fellow, Ern, when his hackle's up."
Alf's eyes blinked as they held the floor.