"And an interesting case it is, by Jove!" he exclaimed brightly. "A man has shuffled off this mortal coil by—what d'you think?"
"Poison or a razor," suggested Henry, out of the fulness of his knowledge of poor humanity.
"Nothing so common for Johnnie Briggs the bookie. Everybody knows Johnnie, and he meant to make a noise when he snuffed out. Up to the eyes in debt, I fancy. He has choked himself with a leather boot-lace, and Wiggins in the High Street is as proud as Punch because it was one of his laces. Isn't it funny?"
"It's very horrible," said Henry, who could not help showing in his looks the feeling of disgust aroused within him by Edgar's levity in speaking of so bad an occurrence.
"Horrible! Why, I think it's stunning, and old Spring will be as mad as a march hare because Johnnie didn't perform his dramatic exit in time for this week's edition of the Guardian. The Advertiser will be out next Wednesday with full details, and we don't appear till Friday. It's always the way; that Wednesday rag gets all the spicy bits. But there, don't let us start talking shop all at once. I'm famished. How are you?"
But before Henry could describe his condition, a bright young woman of some eighteen years had entered the parlour, to be introduced unceremoniously as "My sister Flo—Mr. Henry Charles."
Here, then, was number five, and a very acceptable tea-table companion, thought Henry, though the blushing and mumbling with which he said how pleased he was to meet her showed him to be as awkward in the presence of the fair sex as he was new to the jargon of journalism. He dared hardly lift his eyes to look the new-comer in the face, but on her part there was no evidence of shyness.
Over the tea-cups—for Mr. and Mrs. Winton had now come in, and all were seated at the table—Henry began to feel more at home among the family, and Mr. Winton proved to be a quiet, homely person, though Henry noticed that Edgar lost to some extent his high spirits when his father came on the scene. Evidently the Wintons were people "in reduced circumstances," for both the father and mother showed signs of superior breeding.
"I hope you will get on all right at the Guardian," Mr. Winton remarked. "You won't be short of work, if Edgar is a sample. He's always slogging away at something. If it's not the police courts, it's a political meeting, or a—"
"Tea-fight, dad."