“Yes.”
“I often wonder she hasn’t married again.”
Chris had heard hints from his landlady about an offer of marriage from the owner of the museum, but it had slipped from his memory till now, when the suggestive remark brought it all back, and a mischievous spirit seemed to enter into him.
He could not find it in his heart to bully the man, whose prattling gossip was a part of his trade, but he could vex him and revenge himself in another way for the annoyance Wimble was inflicting, and with boyish love of mischief he replied—
“Yes; so do I. But perhaps it is probable.”
Wimble checked his scissors as they were half-way through a tuft of hair.
“Indeed, sir?” he said, as he went on snipping. “Yes; of course you, being, as you may say, one of the family, and living on the premises, would know.”
“Yes,” said Chris, in a tone suggestive of much knowledge; and then there was an interval of snipping, and Wimble coughed.
“If one might say so, sir,” he said, “that was a most gallant act of yours the other day.”
“Eh? What was?”