“The twins want to go to the theatre—the Gaiety,” said Muriel, in tones of suppressed laughter, as she read what she had written. “‘Let’s pit it to-night,’ whispered Henry. ‘Ma’s in the humour to fork out, as the lodgers have paid up.’”
“Got that? All right then,” and Mr. Carroll began striding up and down, puffing out smoke, and looking at his notes.
“‘How much are you worth?’ asked Henrietta. ‘I’m stumped.’
“‘Two bob. But I shall make her give us five, and we can go on the top of a ’bus. You go and eat some sandwiches, and I’ll tackle her now. She can have a flirtation with the major all the evening.’
“‘Poor wretch, I pity him!’ said Henrietta. ‘Ma will talk about her poor husband until he’ll wish himself out of it. I do want to see the serpentine dance. It’s lovely.’
“‘You’ll be trying to do it with a table-cloth, to-morrow,’ sneered Henry. ‘You’re mad on dancing.’
“‘I’d rather be mad on dancing than on lodgers,’ Henrietta answered, epigrammatically, bouncing out of the room. ‘You get the cash,’ she called as a parting shot.”
“What are you laughing at!” Mr. Carroll asked, in surprise. “Do you find it amusing? It is very vulgar, of course; but I assure you, no exaggeration.”
“It is very wonderful to me,” Muriel said, taking a fresh sheet of paper, “that you can philosophise so deeply when you please, and then put in a chapter like this—the variety is unique.”
“The publishers tell me that it is what the public like. Life is not all beer and skittles, you know, and yet if it were, we should very soon tire of them. There were two little brutes who talked just like that in a place where I stayed once in my young days. ‘Chapter thirty-four. The howl of the pessimist is one of the signs of the times, one that cannot be checked too strongly, for it is the outcome of a discontent fatal to any great achievement, and as false as it is hurtful.’”