My grandpapa smoked and drank whisky, while I sat up into the small hours and argued with him.
"I believe you're right," he said at last. "I can't face the girl, nor yet her father now; but I really think we'd better drop the connection. Socially, of course, it's not satisfactory at all. No doubt young Widdicombe, the life insurance agent, will come back when I'm gone. Yes, we'd better make tracks, perhaps. She hasn't got anything in writing. Besides, I'm sick of this place. I've quarrelled with pretty nearly everybody in it, and I'm owing some money too--some debts of honour--that I think I can wriggle out of paying. I'll try and forget Marie. We'll 'shoot the moon' before quarter-day."
By "shooting the moon," my grandpapa explained that he employed a well-known technicality which meant leaving Chislehurst at night, in an abrupt manner, without letting our departure be known beforehand or advertising our new address in the local newspapers, or even mentioning it at the post-office.
CHAPTER IX.
IN LONDON ONCE MORE.
Of course, a hale man with a strong will of his own, numerous vices, rapidly-decreasing years, and strong, if misplaced, convictions, was more than an unmarried, inexperienced, woman of my age could be expected to manage.
As time progressed I gave up attempting to reform grandpapa, and simply contented myself with praying that he might complete his career without falling into absolute crime. The thought of seeing him in a felon's dock at the last haunted me like a nightmare. He would get younger and less familiar with the wicked ways of the world daily. As a young man, he was one for whom traps, snares, and pitfalls had never been set in vain. When he reached a hundred and eight he would look and feel twenty years of age under the New Scheme. Then, how probable that the poor old man might fall a prey to some iniquitous schemer! I told him my fears, and he sneered bitterly, and said:
"Yes, a pretty old cough-drop I should look, shouldn't I, being sentenced to penal servitude for life--at a hundred and nine years of age? Then you'd see an advertisement in the papers, 'Wanted, at Portland Prison, a wet nurse for the notorious forger and embezzler, Daniel Dolphin.' Bless you, Martha, there's some real fun in store for you and me yet."
I cried and begged him not to say such things. It was a horrible thought, and yet had a ray of comfort in it, that if I could only keep the old man fairly straight for the next five years, or less, he would then be at my mercy again. By that time somebody would certainly have to be a second mother to grandpapa.
We "shot the moon" on a night when there was none. Our next move took us back to town. I hired a little flat, No. 1, Oxford Mansions, a snug place enough, near Earl's Court. According to custom, we left no address behind us, and began life anew. I was obliged to drop all my old friends in Peckham Rye and Ealing for grandpapa's sake. I had met Mrs. Hopkins at Whiteley's, and told her the old man was dead. She pressed me to come and see her, and I answered that I would write. Then I hastened away to the Drugs Department, leaving her in the Haberdashery, astonished and disappointed. My heart sorrowed, for I loved the good woman; but there was nothing else to be done. On another occasion grandpapa took me to the Royal Figi Exhibition at Earl's Court, and we ran right on top of the Bangley-Browns. The girls recognised me, and whispered to their mother; but, of course, they did not know grandpapa. He was twenty years younger than when they last saw him. Mrs. Bangley-Brown turned very red, and sailed towards me; but I dodged with my grandpapa round a refreshment building, and then dragged him through a crowd to the entrance of the Exhibition, finally escaping in a hansom cab.