John advanced to the table without a word, holding his cup.
"You don't mean to say, ma'am," said Mrs. Leek "that he--?"
Alice nodded grievously.
Mrs. Leek burst into tears. "When Johnnie was barely five weeks old," she said, "he would twist my arm. And he kept me without money. And once he locked me up in the cellar. And one morning when I was ironing he snatched the hot iron out of my hand and--"
"Don't! Don't!" Alice soothed her. "I know. I know all you can tell me. I know because I've been through--"
"You don't mean to say he threatened you with the flat-iron?"
"If threatening was only all!" said Alice, like a martyr.
"Then he's not changed, in all these years!" wept the mother of curates.
"If he has, it's for the worse," said Alice. "How was I to tell?" she faced the curates. "How could I know? And yet nobody, nobody, could be nicer than he is at times!"
"That's true, that's true," responded the authentic Mrs. Henry Leek. "He was always so changeable. So queer."