“Give me two more shillings, or I’ll call the police.”
Mrs. Maguire was beaten; she paid up.
The crowd left her, with cries of “Irish Molly!” “Where’s Mick?” and even coarser expressions. Angèle screamed at her:
“Why don’t you stick to ginger-beer? You’re muzzy.”
The taunt stung, and the old Irishwoman cursed her tormentor as a black-eyed little witch.
Angèle, seeing that Martin carried all before him, began straightway to flirt with the heir. At first the defection was not noted, but when she elected to sit by Frank while they watched the acrobats the new swain took heart once more and squeezed her arm.
Evelyn Atkinson, who was in a smiling temper, felt that a crisis might be brought about now. There was not much time. It was nearly ten o’clock, and soon her mother would be storming at her for not having taken herself and her sisters to bed, though, in justice be it said, the girls could not possibly sleep until the house was cleared.
Ernest Beckett-Smythe was her cavalier at the moment.
“We’ve seen all there is te see,” she whispered. “Let’s go and have a dance in our yard. Jim Bates can play a mouth-organ.”
Ernest was a slow-witted youth.