‘Yes, mum, but I’m afraid he’s busy.’
‘I don’t care, I must see him. Say that Mrs Goby wants to see him at once.’
The servant, not without apprehensions, delivered this message at the door of the study.
‘Mrs Goby? Who is Mrs Goby?’ exclaimed the man of letters, irate at the disturbance.
There sounded an answer out of the passage, for the visitor had followed close.
‘I am Mrs Goby, of the ‘Olloway Road, wife of Mr C. O. Goby, ‘aberdasher. I just want to speak to you, Mr Yule, if you please, seeing that Mrs Yule isn’t in.’
Yule started up in fury, and stared at the woman, to whom the servant had reluctantly given place.
‘What business can you have with me? If you wish to see Mrs Yule, come again when she is at home.’
‘No, Mr Yule, I will not come again!’ cried the woman, red in the face. ‘I thought I might have had respectable treatment here, at all events; but I see you’re pretty much like your relations in the way of behaving to people, though you do wear better clothes, and—I s’pose—call yourself a gentleman. I won’t come again, and you shall just hear what I’ve got to say.
She closed the door violently, and stood in an attitude of robust defiance.