"Is Stafford the latest?" Darby asked.
Gheena did not reply, but was snappish to Topsy when the pony would not stand. The old Professor was in the shop—a crowded place, smelling of cheese and bacon and flannelette, where you could purchase a reel of cotton with a salted pig's head brushing your hat, and pull the flannelette of your choice out from under lumps of butter and loaves of bread. The window rejoiced in an array of Peggy's leg firmly adhering to its glass bottles, some tins of tomatoes, an array of match-boxes and the day's bread; the far end of the shop was the post-office, smelling of damp gum and dust.
Here Miss Carty, the postmistress, had at first been greatly put out because every man in the Army, no matter what regiment they jined, good Munsthers or not, was all put into the same lot—the Expeditionary Force—where, for all they knew, they might be dyin' and fightin' with misfortunate furriners, Scotch and English. Explanation having proved vain, she gave it up and accepted the injustice. Mrs. Carty, who rolled to and fro deftly amid boxes and barrels, was a person of superior intelligence, greatly shocked just then at the hobnobbing of the English soldiers with the German thraitors at Christmas-tide.
"If it was rooses to get them over to their ditches and doctor them quietly, I could understand," declaimed Mrs. Carty; "but—but to be handin' out smhokes and dhrinks an' carryin' on pleasantly without an objec'! I have the sardines in, Miss Gheena. Thruppence a box extry, seein' the ways them under-minded boats has all the fish swhep from the say. Aisy for them to get a catch down below with the fish to be cot an' they slheepin'."
Gheena placed the sardines in the trap and got in gloomily.
They were hailed passing Mrs. Weston's door. Violet really brilliant in pale blue with a wide sailor hat on her toupée, and wearing purple shoes and stockings, was at it with Stafford.
"Watching for you," she said to Gheena, "to bring you in to tea."
Gheena observed with care how Stafford kept close to Violet as they went up the path, and looked really admiringly at her brilliant colouring and bright face.
"If she'd only let her feet out," said Darby, hobbling in.
Mrs. Weston did not excel in giving tea. It came up upon a brass tray, and was generally both stewed and chilly. Two bought cakes, crumbly and dry, and a plate of thick bread and butter were the eatables.