“You’ll be home at the usual time, sir?” she asked.
“So far as I know, Mrs. Harris,” was the listless reply.
His landlady looked at the practically undisturbed breakfast table and gathered strength of purpose.
“Me and Harris, sir,” she declared, “we offers our respects and we hopes nothing ain’t going to be changed here.”
“You are very good—both of you,” Jacob said, with a weak smile. “For the present I don’t think that I could live cheaper anywhere else, nor, I am sure, as comfortably. I have had quite a decent situation offered me. The only thing is I may be away a little more.”
“That’s good news, sir, anyway,” the woman replied heartily. “I mean to say,” she added, “it’s good news about your staying on here. And me and Harris,” she went on, “having no children, so to speak, and you having paid liberal and regular for the last four years, we seem to have a bit of money we’ve no use for,” she added, producing at last that bulging purse, “and we thought maybe you might do us the honour—”
Jacob took her by the shoulders and shook her.
“For God’s sake, don’t, Mrs. Harris!” he broke in. “If I want it, I’ll come to you. And—God bless you!”
Whereupon he picked up his hat and stick, stepped through the open French window, cut a rose for his buttonhole as usual, and started on his purgatorial walk, making a tremendous effort to look as though nothing had happened.