“Good evening, Aunt Judith. Good evening, Aunt Hester,” he said cheerily.
They were exactly alike, these two old ladies; the same marvellously wrinkled features and silver hair; voluminous caps and white woollen shawls identical. With exaggerated marks of respect he kissed each by turn on her withered cheek.
“May I sit down, Aunt Judith?” he asked, and without waiting for an answer drew a chair towards the fireplace, where a small fire burnt though it was the month of August.
“Yes, Nephew Vellacott, you may take a seat,” replied Aunt Judith with chill severity, “and you may also tell us where you have been during the last four weeks.”
Poor old human wreck! Only ten hours earlier her nephew had bid her farewell for the day. Christian began an explanation in a weary, mechanical way, like an actor tired of the part assigned to him, but the old ladies would not listen. Aunt Hester interrupted him promptly.
“Your shallow excuses are wasted on us, Nephew Vellacott. You have doubtless been away, enjoying yourself and leaving us—us who support you and deprive ourselves in order to keep a decent coat upon your back—leaving us to the mercy of all the thieves in London. And tell us, pray—what are we to do for spoons and forks to-night?”
“What?” exclaimed Christian with perfunctory interest, “have the spoons gone—?” he almost said “again,” but checked himself in time. He turned to look at the table, which had been carefully denuded of every piece of silver.
“There, you see!” quavered Aunt Judith triumphantly; and the two old ladies rubbed their hands, nodded their palsied old heads at each other, and chuckled in utter delight at their nephew's discomfiture, until Aunt Judith was attacked by a violent fit of coughing, which seemed to be tearing her to pieces. Christian watched her with the ready keenness of a sick-nurse.
“How did it occur?” he asked, when the old lady had recovered.
“There, you see,” remarked Aunt Hester, with the precise intonation of her accomplice.