“Oh, well, we managed all right in the old place.”
“Yes, but then these servants won’t do nearly so much,” she complained, “and they have more to do as it is. I must say I think it is only right that we should consider them more than we used to do. It must be so dreadful to work all day. I am sure that new girl Strickland would be more satisfied and likely to stop if you kept your room tidier, Cyril.”
Evangeline poked her head round the door. “Father,” she asked, “can I leave your books and have a lesson on the car from that magnificent Fitz-Augustus person of yours? He says he is going some messages for you, and he wouldn’t mind——”
“Anything you like,” said her father, “so long as I don’t know anything about it; you can’t drive without a licence. Also, if you’ll make Dicky go for a walk with me. I must go into the town, and I must have some exercise, and I won’t walk alone.”
“I don’t think we’ll do that business after all,” he said as he left the house with Teresa half an hour later. “It only means a small additional coolness to the heels of an unknown gentleman in an office. They’ll warm up again to-morrow, like a lodging house chop. You’ve never lived in lodgings have you?”
“No, never.”
“Well, never do. When I lived in lodgings and used to be a bit off colour in the morning I used to see ornaments about everywhere. I remember I once saw a china dog, with a basket of forget-me-nots in its mouth, on the Colonel’s table in the middle of his papers, and I’m hanged if I know to this day whether it was a real one or not. I could never make up my mind about it, though it gave me such a turn that I went round to the chemist and got something.”
“What else,” asked Teresa. “That’s lovely.”
“Oh, I don’t remember anything special; but they never clean the mustard pot in those places—that was another thing. They’ve no sense. And I never could find the matches. They’d be at the bottom of a vase with dried grass in it, or that kind of thing. I think this ought to take us down to the docks. Would you like to see them?”