He sighed and then limped to the door again.
“I’ll have some beds made up for you,” he said. “I guess we can manage for one night.”
“It may be more than one night,” said Tish, looking him straight in the eye. “They have to send away for those springs, Will.”
“Well, two nights then,” he said, and went out of the room, closing the door softly behind him.
It did not require any keen intelligence to show us that we were not welcome, and I said so to Tish.
“Personally,” I observed, “I imagine he would rather have the whooping cough!”
“Not the whooping cough,” said Tish. “That’s noisy, Lizzie.” She then walked to the door, opened it and slammed it hard. “There’s no death here yet,” she said, “although there may be, if I don’t hold myself in. Where’s that dog?”
Well, the poor little thing had crept under a sofa, and was almost too feeble to crawl out.
“Eats her food, does he?” said Tish. “So nobody feeds him downstairs, and he’s starving to death. Here,” she said, “try this, old boy.”
To our surprise she drew a package of raw chopped beef out of her pocket, and the way that creature bolted it was a revelation. Tish watched him carefully but said nothing, and before Will came back she had burned the paper in the fireplace.