At first, Doctor Woolley was seldom seen by Elsie. He went out early, and both he and his wife were out nearly every night.
Mrs. Woolley told Elsie that they adored the theatre. Elsie, who adored it too, had on these occasions, after putting the two children to bed, to remain sulkily behind while Dr. and Mrs. Woolley, after an early meal, walked away together to the Underground station. Sometimes Dr. Woolley was sent for, and could not go, and Mrs. Woolley rang up one of her friends on the telephone—always another woman—and took her instead. One evening after this had happened, the doctor returned unexpectedly early, just as Elsie had finished putting Gladys and Sonnie to bed.
She was coming downstairs, some needlework in her hands, as the doctor slammed the hall door behind him. Instantly the prospect of a dreary evening, probably to be spent in sucking sweets and surreptitiously looking over everything on Mrs. Woolley’s untidy writing-table, disappeared.
“Hallo! And how was you to-morrow, Miss Elsie?” cried the doctor genially.
He was a stout, middle-aged man, jocose and very often foul-mouthed, with nicotine stains on his fingers and grease spots on his waistcoat.
He affected a manner of speech that Elsie found intensely amusing.
“You and I all on our ownie own, eh? Where’s the missus?—and the kids?”
“The children are in bed, and Mrs. Woolley’s gone to the play with Miss Smith, Doctor.”
“And haven’t you got a drink of cocoa and a bit of bread for a poor man, kind lady?”
Elsie burst out laughing. “You’re so silly, I can’t help laughing!”