Then the three Smiths came in. There was some queer attire in that dining-room, but I think that Mrs Smith won the gold medal for queerness. All her "colonialness" had come suddenly out. They evidently hadn't been very fortunate. But they didn't seem to mind much. They hadn't thought very highly of the hotel before, and they accepted the fire good-humouredly as one of the necessary drawbacks of a hotel that wasn't quite up to their Winnipeg form. Nellie Smith was delightful. I must say she was delightful, and she looked delightful. She was wearing a blue-and-red striped petticoat, rather short, and a white jersey, and over that a man's blue jacket, which fitted her pretty well. She looked indescribably pert and charming, though the jacket was dirty and stained.
I noticed Ellis staring and staring at that jacket....
I needn't tell you. You can see a mile off what had happened.
Ellis said in his casual way:
"Hello! Where did you pick up that affair, Miss Smith?" Meaning the jacket.
She said she had picked it up on one of the landings, and that there was a pair of continuations lying in a broken bonnet-box just close to it, and that the continuations were ruined by too much water.
I could feel myself blushing redder and redder.
"In a bonnet-box, eh?" said Master Ellis.
Then he said: "Would you mind letting me look at the right-hand breast-pocket of that jacket?"
She didn't mind in the least. He looked at the strip of white linen that your men's tailors always stitch into that pocket with your name and address and date, and age and weight, and I don't know what.