“What are you muttering, Carty?” asked his sister.
“Nothing, nothing,” and he pushed his chair away from his untasted coffee—Oh! how good it smelt, with lots of lovely cream from the Bonstones’ own cows in it, and a sugary sweet smell, for he liked six lumps.
“Stanna,” he said presently, “where’s your husband?”
“Gone,” she said, “some time ago. He was in a hurry to get to town. We were late.”
“Then I’ll have to tell you,” he went on with hanging head. “Don’t blame the men. This bottle was mine,” and he hurled the neck through the open window. “I—I’m very sorry. I don’t see how your hens got at it. They must have vicious tastes.”
Now just here, instead of falling on his neck, and extracting from him promises of reform, as she had done so many, oh! so many, times, his sister did what seemed to me a queer thing, at first.
She put her arms on the table, dropped her head on them, and said, “Oh! oh! oh!” a great many times.
Gringo had been licking his paw thoughtfully, while he listened to the conversation at the table. Now he stopped, and pondered. He had struck a snag in his thoughts. He was trying to catch on to Mrs. Bonstone’s wasping, as he told me when I whispered to him.
Presently he went on licking, and I knew he had got the clue.