"And those—yes."
Roy expounded.
"Jolly good pay, I call it; lot of lazy beggars! Why, the fellow down there wanted to charge me two pounds for patching up that centre-board, that I did in about a day. I shouldn't mind getting two pounds a day!... Why?"
"I want to know."
"Some of your gardeners been grizzling to you?"
"No."
"A wonder—rotten grousing lot! They ought to have uniforms to buy, and mess-bills and clubs and things; they'd know all about it then! Two pounds for filing a piece of iron and putting a patch on a piece of wood!—I think it will hold all right," he continued naïvely; "we shall make a deuce of a lot of leeway if it doesn't. We're flat-bottomed, you see, with only bilge-keels, and that reminds me; Izzard's coming back on Wednesday; I'd a note from him this morning. But he won't be in the way, dear, if you'll only be friends——"
She could not help laughing. After all, Richenda's "grousing" was a little spoiling her fun. She turned to him again.
"I haven't seen her yet," she said. "Let's go down to her now."
He chuckled mildly. "You do play the dickens with the Rules, Louie."