"That's the fine-alley!" announced 'Bias, as another detonator banged aloft, while a volcano of "fiery serpents" hissed and screamed behind it. "Let's run for shelter!"
He offered his arm. Cai did the same. But Mrs Bosenna—she had not clung to any one this time—very nimbly slipped between them and took Dinah for protector. She was in the gayest of moods, as they all scrambled up the wet steps to the roadway, and so down other flights of wet steps under the pattering rain to the shelter of 'Bias's summer-house.
"Just in time!" she panted, shaking the drops from her cloak. "And I can't remember whenever I've enjoyed myself so much. But—" as she looked about her and over the table—"what a feast!"
It was a noble feast. If Cai had been busy all day, no less had 'Bias been busy. There were lobsters; there were chickens, with a boiled ham; there was a cold sirloin of beef, for grosser tastes; there were jellies, tartlets, a trifle, a cherry pie. There was beer in a nine-gallon jar, and cider in another. There were bottles of fizzy lemonade, with a dash of which Mrs Bosenna insisted on diluting her cider. Her mirth was infectious as they feasted, while the rain, now descending in a torrent, drummed on the summer-house roof.
"How on earth we're ever to get home, Dinah, I'm sure I don't know!
And what's more, I don't seem to care, just yet."
Captain Cai and Captain 'Bias protested in unison that, when the time came, they would escort her home against all perils.
"You can trust me, ma'am, I hope?" blurted 'Bias.
"I can trust both of you, I hope." Mrs Bosenna glanced towards Cai, or so Cai thought.
"The jokes they keep makin'!" Palmerston reported to Mrs Bowldler. (With the utmost cheerfulness he continued running to and fro between summer-house and residence under the downpour.) "When Mrs Bosenna said that about a merrythought I almost split myself."
"There's a medium in all things," Mrs Bowldler advised him. "Stand-offish should be your expression when waiting at table; like as if you'd heard it all before several times, no matter how funny they talk. As for splitting, I shiver at the bare thought."