John smiled.
"I know she has," said he.
"I suppose you didn't think that clever, what I said?"
"Oh, yes, I do--I do. I don't even think the Mr. Chesterton would have thought of that."
"Don'tcher really, now? Don'tcher really?"
John had not smiled; but this--well, of course, this made up for everything. The Mr. Chesterton would not have thought of Time and Tide being like a pair of children goin' to a circus! Now, if he were to write that and a few other things like it, which he dared say he could think of easily enough, he, too, might be a great man whose name would be on the lips of such women as that perfect little lady upstairs. Then she would understand the likes of him.
"Then you think I suited the part?" he said cheerfully at the door.
"I think, under the circumstances and everything being considered, you did it wonderfully," said John. "And as for your being good enough to trust me--well--it's finer than all the epigrams in the world."
He wrung his hand once more and the little man departed happily down the Lane, thinking of all the clever things that he would say to his old woman when eventually he got home. But--Time and Tide, like a pair of children--he knew he'd never beat that. She had smiled at it. She had thought it clever. The other things that came laboriously into his mind as he walked down the Lane, were not a patch on it.
The moment John had closed the door, he flew upstairs.