"A severe punishment for a kindly action," I remarked. "I hope the young Wildacres will not live to murder Mr. Blathwayte."
"I'm sure I hope so too, but you never can tell with strangers. You don't know what's in them, as you might say, like you do with those that you've had from their birth."
"And even those give shocks sometimes to their upbringers," I added, lighting a cigarette. "I know you don't mind my smoking, Ponty."
"Not for a moment, as far as I'm concerned, Master Reggie; but for your own sake I doubt you smoke too much. I don't hold with making a chimney of your throat, I never did, it's agen nature."
"But think of the relief to my overstrained nerves, Ponty."
"Overstrained fiddlesticks, Master Reggie, if you'd excuse my saying so! Why, what have you got to overstrain your nerves, I should like to know?"
"There's trouble in the forget-me-not bed," I answered solemnly.
Ponty's bright brown eyes twinkled. She and I had laughed together at Annabel ever since I could remember. "Oh, she's found it out, has she, Master Reggie? I knew there'd be trouble when I saw Cutler planting them so far apart, but he wouldn't listen to me. The other servants are foolish not to take my advice, for I knew Miss Annabel before some of them were born or thought of. She must have her own way, and she must have it done in her own way, or there's no peace for anybody."
"That being the case, you see my urgent need for the soothing effects of tobacco."
But Ponty shook her head. "I should try and get soothed in some other way, if I was you, Master Reggie: say with a peppermint drop or an Albert biscuit. Why, there was once a man at Poppenhall when my father was a lad——"