Then I grew anxious, and wondered to myself what it did mean; and since discretion is the better part of a good many things, I thought it would be wisest to explain that I hadn’t the faintest idea what it stood for.
He smiled when I confessed. “Well, I can tell you,” he said, as he proceeded to mumble a little in an unknown tongue to himself, reading each collection of strokes in turn. “It means—er—let me see—well—to translate it quite broadly, you understand, in the vernacular, the nearest equivalent in English is ‘Beware of Pickpockets.’”
Truly, you never know!
Work was extra heavy in my office that week. Like every other business house, we were understaffed, with the majority of our expert men at the front. Moreover, I was trying to get things a little ahead, as I was going away on the Friday.
I did not get home till nearly nine o’clock on the Tuesday following my adoption of Eileen, and by that time I was too tired to trouble about matters domestic. Nevertheless I noticed that the house seemed very draughty; but I put it down to a very high wind that had set in earlier in the day.
As I was going upstairs to bed about half-past ten, I noticed the powerful draught again. I like plenty of air in the house, but after all a line should be drawn somewhere when it is blowing a hurricane, and I said so.
“Well, and to think I forgot to tell you!” said Abigail cheerfully. “The skylight’s blown clean away, and rain’s been pouring in like anything on the top landing!” Judging by her pleased expression, you might have thought that the deluge was in gold.
If you have ever been fortunate enough to find yourself minus a fair-sized skylight on a stormy night, and the man of the house away on urgent business, and not expected back for a month, you will know what my feelings were when I heard the news. It is useless for me to try to describe them.
Virginia and Ursula, who live near me in London, were hastily summoned. By the time we had all done exclaiming, “Well, I never!” singly and in chorus, and had heard full details of the catastrophe repeated for the eighth time by Abigail, it was eleven o’clock. And as no self-respecting builder’s man can do any work after five o’clock (and few seem able to do any before that hour), it was obviously useless to hope for professional aid. So we took a step-ladder to the top landing and piled it on a table, with me on top of all, domestics clutching the step-ladder fervently as I balanced myself on its dizzy height, and exclaiming, “Oh, do be careful, madam!” at frequent intervals; with Virginia and Ursula offering unlimited advice in a running duet.