"Good show, what?" queried Dick Little as he lazily pulled at his pipe, tired after a long day's work in the hospital.
"Seemed a bit cruel to me," said Dane as he struggled out of a pair of hefty-looking corsets.
"Cruel!" cried Bindle indignantly, as he sat up straight in his chair. "Cruel! with 'im a-tryin' to take the gal away from one of the boys wot's fightin' at the front. Cruel! It wouldn't be cruel, Mr. Nancy, if 'e was cut up an' salted an' given to the 'Uns as a meat ration;" and with this ferocious pronouncement Bindle sank back again in his chair and puffed away at his cigar.
"Sorry!" said Dane, laboriously pulling off a stocking.
"Right-o!" said Bindle cheerfully. Then after a pause he added, "I got to thank Ole 'Amlet for that little idea, and you, sir, for findin' Mr. Nancy. Did it wonderful well, 'e did; still," remarked Bindle meditatively, "I wish they 'adn't blown that police-whistle. Them pore women an' kids was that scared, made me feel I didn't ought to 'ave done it; but then, 'ow was I to know that the Ole Bird was goin' to 'anky-panky like that with Calves. Took 'er name they did, that's somethink. Any'ow, ole Mac won't go 'angin' round Millikins again for many a long day. If 'e does I'll punch 'is bloomin' 'ead."
The next day Lady Knob-Kerrick and John were summoned for causing to be blown to the public confusion a police-whistle, and although the summonses were dismissed the magistrate said some very caustic things about the insensate folly of excitable women. He furthermore made it clear that if anybody blew a police-whistle in the south-western district because somebody else's wife had come back unexpectedly, he would without hesitation pass a sentence that would discourage any repetition of so unscrupulous and unpardonable an act.
Mr. MacFie cleared his character to some extent by a sermon on the following Sunday upon the ninth commandment, and by inserting an advertisement in the principal papers offering £20 to anyone who would give information as to the identity of the woman who on the night of the 28th had created a disturbance in the Alton Road School Room.