“It was nothing at all! Hurry and get a wash up, Jim! Dinner’s ready,” smiled Eileen. “We’ll tell you all you want to know when we are having something to eat.”
They sat down to a pleasant little meal, but, somehow, the earlier proceedings had cast a damper over the usual gaiety of the trio and their conversation for once was desultory and of a serious nature.
Phil explained as best he could what had taken place between Eileen and Sing. Eileen could throw no further light on Phil’s story. But Jim did not seem to require any, for a look of perfect understanding showed in his big, gaunt, honest face.
“Do you know, Eileen,––you could not have heaped a worse insult on Sing than you did,” he remarked.
“But I didn’t say a word, Jim!”
“No!––but you demonstrated on him with that broom.”
“And what of that? Anybody is liable to get a little dust swept over him by a busy housewife.”
Jim rose. “Wait a bit!” he remarked. He went to the door and whistled a loud note that Ah Sing was familiar with.
Shortly afterwards, the Chinaman, very much bruised up––his eye swollen, and limping––came in. An expression of the deepest humility and cringe was on his battered countenance.