"What, are you ladies at work already?"
"Oh, I don't let the grass grow under my feet," said Mrs Polsue.
"Damn the woman, I suppose that's a slap at me," muttered Dr Mant to himself. But he tapped on the Penhaligons' door for her very politely.
"Thank you," she said. "That's Nanjivell's door, at the end of the passage."
He bowed and went on, came to the door, paused for a glance at the padlock hitched loose on the staple, knocked, and—as his custom was when visiting the poor—walked in briskly, scarce waiting for an answer.
"Hullo!"
Between him and the small window, almost blocking the light—on a platform constructed of three planks and a couple of chairs set face to face—stood Nicky-Nan, with a trowel in one hand and a bricklayer's board in the other, surprised in the act of plastering his parlour ceiling.
"Had an accident here?" asked Dr Mant, eyeing the job critically.
"Old house tumbling about your ears?"
"No . . . yes—that's to say—" stammered Nicky-Nan; then he seemed to swallow down something, and so to make way for a pent-up fury. "Who sent for 'ee? Who told 'ee to walk in like that without knockin'? . . . That's what I ask—Who sent for 'ee here? I didn!"
"What in thunder's wrong with ye?" asked the Doctor, very coolly taking a third chair, seating himself astraddle on it, and crossing his arms over the top. "No harm to be taken patching up a bit of plaster, is there?" Again he eyed the ceiling.