"What brought me in?" said Giveen. "Why, what else but a girl?"
"A girl?"
"Faith, the prettiest girl I ever saw. I was coming along the street here, looking for someone to ask them where French lived, when a motor-car stopped at that red-brick place, and out of a motor-car steps a girl with a face like a tea-rose. The instant her eye lit on me she smiles. Now, when a girl smiles at a fellow like that, what does it mean?"
"That she's fallen in love with you, of course," replied Mr. Dashwood, looking at the face and figure of his companion as one looks at a Toby jug on a Hogarth print, allured yet repelled by its grotesqueness.
"Well," went on Mr. Giveen, "what does a fellow do when a girl looks at him like that but follow her? So in I went, and a chap at the door stops me. 'Sixpence,' says he. 'What for?' says I. 'To go into the bazaar,' says he. 'What are they doin' there?' says I. 'Selling things,' says he. 'I want a cup of tea,' says I, 'but I'm not goin' to pay sixpence to go in and get it.' 'Oh,' he says, 'they give refreshment away for nothing to such as you.' So in I went."
"Just so," cut in Mr. Dashwood. "See here, when are you going back to town?"
"By the half-past five train."
"Are you in a hurry to get back?"
"Faith, and I am. I've done my business here, and I've more business to do in town."