"What's that?" he gasped.
"Please, Mr. Lancelot, I want to ask you to do me a favour." She dropped her eyelashes timidly.
"Yes, Mary Ann," he said briskly. "But what have you got there?"
"It's only my canary, sir. Would you—please, sir, would you mind?"—then desperately: "I want to hang it up here, sir!"
"Here?" he repeated in frank astonishment.
"Why?"
"Please, sir, I—I—it's sunnier here, sir, and I—I think it must be pining away. It hardly ever sings in my bedroom."
"Well, but," he began—then seeing the tears gathering on her eyelids, he finished with laughing good-nature—"as long as Mrs. Leadbatter doesn't reckon it an extra."
"Oh no, sir," said Mary Ann seriously. "I'll tell her. Besides, she will be glad, because she don't like the canary—she says its singing disturbs her. Her room is next to mine, you know, Mr. Lancelot."
"But you said it doesn't sing much."