With inward tremblings, he waited for the door to open again. As he stood, hoping against hope in his coward heart that the summons had not been heard, a big, heavily-hipped woman, in a dirty black-and-white foulard blouse, a draggled green skirt, and shapeless stays, slid through the gate and waddled up the path.
"So you got 'ere fust," she gasped, her flushed face showing that she had been hurrying. "Well, well, it can't be 'elped, I suppose, fust come fust served. I always says it and always shall."
The little man had swung round, and now stood blinking up at the new arrival, who entirely blocked his line of retreat.
"Knocked, 'ave you?" she enquired, fanning her flushed face with a folded newspaper.
He nodded; but his gaze was directed over her heaving shoulder at a man and woman, with a little girl between them, approaching from the opposite side of the way.
As the new arrivals entered the garden, the stout woman explained that "this gentleman" had already knocked.
"P'raps they ain't up yet," suggested the man with the little girl.
"Well, they ought to be," said the stout woman with conviction.
Another woman now joined the throng, her turned-up sleeves and the man's tweed cap on her head, kept in place by a long, amber-headed hat-pin, testifying to the limited time she had bestowed upon her toilette.
"Is it took?" she demanded of the woman with the little girl.