“The missis,” agreed the landlord.
“I suppose it ’ud be no good my trying to—”
“It ’ud be no good your trying anything!” interrupted the landlord, with conviction. “You can bet she’s got her knife into you, and you can bet nothing ’ud please her more than to twist it round like a corkscrew.”
“Well, if I had a job here,” contended Mr. Lock, “she’d have a lot more chances to twist it.”
“Look here, I’d give you the job if I dared, but I dare not, and that’s flat and honest,” said the landlord, earnestly. “I daren’t! See? That’s how it is—I daren’t! But here she comes; you can ask her about it, if you like.”
The landlady, returning, bent a gaze of extreme displeasure on both Mr. Lock and her husband at finding them in commune. Mr. Lock, studying her countenance but the briefest while, turned away.
“I don’t think it matters,” he remarked.
Twenty minutes later the law’s exigency emptied the “Royal William.” The fresh air outside immediately had a restorative effect on Mr. Lock’s spirits, giving back to him his normal buoyancy, so that he shed his worries like a mantle, and became again his gay and debonair self. Mr. Tridge, however, had come to a slow and obstinate truculency of mood, and avowed an open antagonism to all mankind. And this divergency of outlook led to an unfortunate sequel, for, as they made their way back to the ship, which was only to continue as their home until the formalities of her sale had been completed, a black cat shot across their path, and Mr. Lock gleefully hailed its transit as a fortunate omen. “Black cats are always lucky!” declared Mr. Lock, with elation.
“You’re a liar!” churlishly declared Mr. Tridge.
“But they are!” insisted Mr. Lock.