“It’s nails!” croaked Elsie deeply; and at that cook gave a groan of dismay.
“It is, for sure! Them dratted tacks! Your Mar said we was to put in a tack here and there between the rings, and there was a saucerful just there. Somebody has knocked it over, I expect, and scattered them about the floor.”
Maud looked round with a despairing glance. The accident had happened in the worst possible position, as such accidents are invariably supposed to do, the nails being spilt a couple of yards from the wall, in such a position that two sides of the carpet must be unfastened before they could be removed. She stared at her sisters, and they stared back in a long, sullen silence.
“We can’t do it again, and we sha’n’t!” said Nan recklessly. “Send for a man, and let him break his fingers for a change. I need mine for another purpose.”
“Thursday afternoon, my dear. The shops are shut, and not a man to be had.”
“Never saw anything like it. It always is Thursday afternoon! Put a table over the place then, and leave the tacks where they are. No one will see them.”
“Oh, Nan, as if a table could stay in the same place for a year. Besides, the nails are bound to come out; if we don’t take them away, they’ll work little holes for themselves, and then what would mother say? There’s no use shirking it. The carpet has to come up again, and we shall have to do it.”
“It’s too disgusting! All this time wasted, and now to find ourselves farther back than when we started. I could cry!” protested Elsie dolefully; and Maud gave a little flop of impatience.
“Oh, so could I—howl, if that would do any good; but it won’t, so we might as well stop talking and set to work. Begin at once, Jane, please; we’ll push, and make it as easy as possible.”
The workers crawled wearily back to their posts, while the audience, in the shape of Lilias and Christabel, stood in the doorway and cheered them with derisive comments.