“Jump in, old man,” his father said.
The door banged.
“Yer awright?” asked Mr. Grace.
“We’re all right,” said Peter’s father.
“Kum up.” Mr. Grace tugged savagely on the reins. “Kum up, carn’t yer?” He had to vent his feelings some way.
“Dammitall,” he growled as his “keb” crawled down the Terrace, “dammitall. It’ll taik more ‘an this fare’s worf to wash me mouf out this time. It’s got inter me froat. ‘Ope I ain’t goin’ to blub. Dammit!”
CHAPTER XIV—PETER IN EGYPT
Miss Lydia Rufus was a prim person. Judging from her appearance one would have said that in her case virtue was compulsory through lack of opportunity. And yet she had had her “accident”—that was how she referred to it in conversations with her Maker. No one in Sandport, save herself and God, knew about it. It had happened ten years before Peter became her pupil. The “accident” had been born anonymously, as one might say, and had been brought up incognito. After the first unavoidable preliminaries for which her presence was indispensable, she and the “accident” had separated. She hardly ever dared to see it, for she was alone in the world and had her living to earn—to do that one must appear respectable.