"Oh, my good friend, you have no idea what a terrible fellow Charley is. Why he broke the head of the skittleman at the "Load of Hay." So he told me himself. Ah, he's a terrible fellow, when he's put out."
"But you forget, Mrs. Shelfer, he hasn't been put out this time; he was put in." That Isola always loved small jokes.
"Put in, Miss Idols?" Mrs. Shelfer never understood any joke but her own--"oh yes, put into the water you mean. True, true, and serve him right (so long as he don't take cold) for calling me, his lawful wife who keeps him together, 'the old gal at home!' But Charley's a terrible fellow, terrible."
"Terrible coward more likely," I cried, "or he would never have dared his low insolence to me. I am sorry for it, Mrs. Shelfer, utterly as I scorn him, because it compels me to leave your house; and you have been truly good and kind to me." I thought of Mrs. Huxtable; but how different was the fibre of her kindness!
"Leave my house, Miss Valence! No, no, my good friend, that will never do, not to be thought of, and us so used to you and all, and Tom, and the blackbird, and the new squirrel! A likely story, my good friend, and with your eyelashes coming! And do you know who would come instead of you?"
"Of course not, Mrs. Shelfer."
"Why a nasty stinking hussy, that would steal the feathers out of my best bed again, the same as they did before. My very best bed, Miss Idols, as dear Miss Minto left me by her will, not a better bed in London, unless it's the Queen's, and so I used to tell her when I helped to shake it up. My mouth watered over it so, that she said one day, and the knife-boy heard her on the stairs, 'Patty, you've been a good girl to me, and you deserves it, and you shall have it, when I am tucked up for good and all.' And so I did, very honourable, and all above board. Yes, yes; I had a commercial gent one time, a wonderful heavy man to be sure, and he stayed with me three year for the sake of that same bed. And he knew what beds was, and no mistake. It was bootiful to see when he was a getting up. It began to rise up, up, the same as Tom's back, when he see your dog, Miss Idols."
"Come, Mrs. Shelfer, I fear we can hardly wait."
"'Twas like dough put afore the fire, Miss. There's no such Dantzic now. You couldn't put your fist into one side of it, but out it would come the other. Oh Lor, I could cry; that nasty sly minx, she was softer than parsnips, you'd say, and one leg more than the other. I couldn't think why it was she would always make her own bed. 'Thank you, Mrs. Shelfer'--with her lips sucked in like a button-hole--'thank you, you are too kind. It doesn't at all fatigue me, and my doctor pronounces the exercise good for my chest and arms.' Thank God, she got some exercise good for her legs as well. Six months on the treadmill. Charley got me an order, and it did my heart good to see her. But my twenty pounds of best feathers never came back again, and that wasn't the worst of it neither."
"Oh dear no," says Idols, "the worst of it was the sin, Mrs. Shelfer."