"He says he'll pay you out. He'll summons you. He was most abusive."
Mr. Waddington's face positively swelled with the choleric flush that swamped its genial fatuity.
"It seems somebody told him you were going to do up the cottage and let it for more rent."
"I don't know who could have spread that story."
"I assure you, Mr. Waddington, it wasn't me!"
"My dear Mrs. Levitt, of course…. I won't say I wasn't thinking of it, and that I wouldn't have done it, if I could have got rid of Ballinger…." He meditated.
"I don't see why I shouldn't get rid of him. If he dares me, the scoundrel, he's simply asking for it. And he shall have it."
"Oh, but I wouldn't for worlds have him turned into the street. With his wife and babies."
"My dear lady, I shan't turn them into the street. I shouldn't be allowed to. There's a cottage at Lower Wyck they can go into. The one he had when he first came to me."
He wondered why he hadn't thought of it before. It wasn't, as it stood, a decent cottage; but if he was prepared to spend fifty pounds or so on it, it could be made habitable; and, by George, he was prepared, if it was only to teach Ballinger a lesson. For it meant that Ballinger would have to walk an extra mile up hill to his work every day. Serve him right, the impudent rascal.