“See here! How do grapes grow? Or laburnums?”
An idea broke in on him.
“What! they be topsy-turvy?” he slowly observed, after looking from the faulty breadth to the next.
“Of course they are. Find the rest of the paper! We must have a piece put on at once, or the whole appearance of the room is spoilt,” said Captain Carbonel. “It will make a delay, but it must be done at once. Where is the piece left over?”
Hewlett retreated to find it, while the captain said something about “stupid ass.”
Presently his gruff voice was heard demanding, “Dan, I say, where’s the remnant of that there fancy paper?”
Dan’s answer did not rise into audible words, but presently Hewlett tramped back, saying, “There ain’t none, sir.”
“I tell you there must be,” returned the captain, in the same angry tones. And he proceeded to show that the number of pieces he had bought, and the measure of which he had ascertained, was such that there ought to have been half-a-piece left over from papering the room, the size of which he had exactly taken. Hewlett could do nothing but stolidly repeat that “there weren’t none left, not enow to make a mouse’s nest.”
“Who did the papering? Did you?”
“Daniel Hewlett, sir, he did the most on it. My cousin, sir.”