"Oh, it's you this time, is it? Come just to say good night? You needn't have put yourself out."
"Miss Sparkes, are you in your proper dress?"
"What d'you mean?" Polly answered resentfully. "You've been drinking again, I suppose."
"Not at all, my dear. I asked you for a good and sufficient reason. I'm going to break your door open, that's all, and I wish to give you fair warning. Are you dressed or not?"
"Impudent wretch! What are you doing here? What business is it of yours?"
"I'm the only strong man handy, that's all. Paid for the job, being out of work just now."
Mrs. Bubb tittered; Mrs. Cheeseman, down below, choked audibly.
"Will you answer that question or not? Very good; I give you till I've counted fifty, slow. When I say fifty, bang goes the bloomin' door."
Amid an awful silence, enveloped, as it were, by the dull rumbling of vehicles without, Mr. Gammon's voice began counting. He expected to hear Polly's key turn in the lock, so did Mrs. Bubb and Mrs. Clover. But the key moved not.
"Forty-eight—forty-nine—fifty!"