'Waste of good money. She was willin' without.'
There was a step on the gritty mud below, and a voice humming. Midmore rose quickly saying: 'Well, I suppose you're all right now.'
'I be. I ain't a landlord, nor I ain't young--nor anxious. Oh, Mus' Midmore! Would it make any odds about her thirty pounds comin' regular if I married her? Charlie said maybe 'twould.'
'Did he?' Midmore turned at the door. 'And what did Jimmy say about it?'
'Jimmy?' Mr. Sidney chuckled as the joke took him. 'Oh, he's none o' mine. He's Charlie's look-out.'
Midmore slammed the door and ran downstairs.
'Well, this is a--sweet--mess,' said Miss Sperrit in shortest skirts and heaviest riding-boots. 'I had to come down and have a look at it. "The old mayor climbed the belfry tower." 'Been up all night nursing your family?'
'Nearly that! Isn't it cheerful?' He pointed through the door to the stairs with small twig-drift on the last three treads.
'It's a record, though,' said she, and hummed to herself:
'That flood strewed wrecks upon the grass,
That ebb swept out the flocks to sea.'