My voice was encouragement to the tired wayfarer.
“Oh, papa. Was ’frai’ you was ’sleep. Papa, ’blizh me wi’ a mash. Mine wen’ out, wan’a ligh’ a pipe.”
I got out of bed. The moon had about ended its lighting services for the night, but I could see the form of a man sitting on the porch seat, his head swaying from side to side and as I looked he again lifted up his voice and said,
“Papa, don’ you hear me? Be neighbourly, papa.”
“I don’t find any matches,” said, I with a fine Puritanical regard for the letter of the truth. I found none because I did not look for them.
My denial of his request worked on the sensibilities of my unknown neighbour to such an extent that he was moved to tears. Amid his maudlin sobs he said,
“Pa’a, if you came to my house in dea’ night an’ as’ me for mash I’d leshu have one. I’m kin’ hearted, pa’a. On’y one mash I as’ an’ pa’a refuses. My pipe’ gone out an’ pa’a has box’s mashes an’ he can’ fin’ one.”
It did seem a little like a disobliging spirit and I moved to the bureau to get one, but Ethel said,
“Don’t give him one. He’ll set himself on fire or else set fire to the grass. Tell him to go away.”
Ethel has a horror of drunken gentlemen or even drunken men, who are not gentlemen, and I could do no more than respect her wishes.