We did not wish to tell Eliza—I don’t know why. And she opened the door very quickly that day, so that the Taxes and a man who came to our house by mistake for next door got away before Alice had a chance to try them with the Castilian Amoroso. But about five Eliza slipped out for half an hour to see a friend who was making her a hat for Sunday, and while she was gone there was a knock. Alice went, and we looked over the banisters. When she opened the door, she said at once, ‘Will you walk in, please?’ The person at the door said, ‘I called to see your Pa, miss. Is he at home?’
Alice said again, ‘Will you walk in, please?’
Then the person—it sounded like a man—said, ‘He is in, then?’
But Alice only kept on saying, ‘Will you walk in, please?’ so at last the man did, rubbing his boots very loudly on the mat.
Then Alice shut the front door, and we saw that it was the butcher, with an envelope in his hand. He was not dressed in blue, like when he is cutting up the sheep and things in the shop, and he wore knickerbockers. Alice says he came on a bicycle. She led the way into the dining-room, where the Castilian Amoroso bottle and the medicine glass were standing on the table all ready.
The others stayed on the stairs, but Oswald crept down and looked through the door-crack.
‘Please sit down,’ said Alice quite calmly, though she told me afterwards I had no idea how silly she felt. And the butcher sat down. Then Alice stood quite still and said nothing, but she fiddled with the medicine glass and put the screw of brown paper straight in the Castilian bottle.
‘Will you tell your Pa I’d like a word with him?’ the butcher said, when he got tired of saying nothing.
‘He’ll be in very soon, I think,’ Alice said.
And then she stood still again and said nothing. It was beginning to look very idiotic of her, and H. O. laughed. I went back and cuffed him for it quite quietly, and I don’t think the butcher heard.