She felt the parcel, she poised the parcel, she looked at it more and more waggishly. “I wonder,” she said.
Her expression became so waggish that her husband knew she was committed to behaviour of the utmost ungentlemanliness. He had long ceased to attempt restraint in these moods. She put her head on one side and tore open the corner of the parcel just a little way.
“A tin can,” she said in a stage whisper.
She enlarged the opening. “Blades of grass,” she said.
The Professor tried to regard it humorously. “Even if you have ceased to be decent you can still be frank.... I think, now, my dear, you might just straightforwardly undo the parcel.”
She did. Twelve unsympathetic eyes surveyed the evidences of Bealby’s utter poverty.
“He’s coming,” cried Madeleine suddenly.
Judy repacked hastily, but it was a false alarm.
“I said he’d mizzled,” said the Professor.
“And without washing up!” wailed Madeleine, “I couldn’t have thought it of him....”