“Exactly. I’ve been there since. Quite recently. But the weather wasn’t good and I got knocked about by a shell and had a nasty time as a wounded prisoner. Hot. Crowded. No shelter. Nothing cool to drink. But in your time it was different.”
“Very,” said Sargon.
“And now—by Jove! that kettle is boiling over all by this time, Susan. Come down to my room, such as it is, and have a cup of tea, sir. And then you can go out and make those little arrangements of yours and dig yourself in so to speak before Mrs. Richman comes back. This, by the by, is your gas meter. You get gas by the shilling in the slot arrangement.”
“You are being very, very helpful to me,” said Sargon. “It shall not be forgotten when my time comes.”
“Nothing. It just happened you came into my hands so to speak. No, Susan, we don’t. You walk downstairs. Pinching is forgiven but not forgotten. You can leave your map, sir—and that star thing—as visible signs of your occupation. No, Susan—on foot.”
§ 6
The young man’s room was bookish and rather untidy, and Susan had been killing toys on the carpet—a china-headed doll and something or other of yellow painted wood appeared to be the chief victims. The doll had bled sawdust profusely. Dark curtains were drawn and a green-shaded electric light threw all the apartment into darkness except the floor. There was a gas-fire with a gas-ring on which a boiling kettle steamed like an excited volcano; there was a deal table on which was a big pile of letters address to “Aunt Suzannah” c/o Editor of Wilkins’ Weekly, and there was a large untidy desk on which was another litter of letters evidently receiving attention, and in the midst of the desk a writing-pad, on which reposed a squeezable tube of liquid glue and a half-mended toy. The glue oozed upon the face sheet of the writing-pad beneath these words, written in a beautifully neat handwriting:
UPS AND DOWNS
A Pedestrian Novel
BY ROBERT ROOTHING
CHAPTER THE FIRST
WHICH INTRODUCES OUR HERO
Beyond that the novel did not seem to have progressed.
With the dexterity of long-established usage Bobby made tea and produced plum-bread and butter. Meanwhile he kept a wary eye on Susan who had sat down by the waste-paper basket and was tearing up paper, and attended to the remarks and attitudes of his remarkable visitor.