“Well, Mr. Boult, and what is the row, pray?” she pertly inquires, walking up to that gentleman, who eyes her sulkily, raising his candle, and displaying as he does so a big patch of red on each cheek-bone, indicative of the brandy, of which he smells potently.
“What's the row?—you're the row! What brings you down here, Miss Chivvige?”
“My legs! There's your answer, you cross boy.” She laughed wheedlingly.
“Then walk you up again, and be d—d.”
“On! Mr. Boult.”
“P! Miss Phibbie.”
Mr. Boult was speaking thick, and plainly was in no mood to stand nonsense.
“Now Mr. Boult, where's the good of making yourself disagreeable?”
“Look at this 'ere,” he replied, grimly holding a mighty watch, of some white metal, under her eyes—“you know your clock as well as me, Miss Chavvinge. The gentlemen will be in this 'ere awl in twenty minutes.”
“All the more need to be quick, Mr. Boult, Sir, and why will you keep me 'ere talking?” she replies.