"Oh, I say!" groans Bobby, jumpin' up, and by the time I've struck the bottom stair on my way out he's grabbed his overcoat and is beatin' it down to find his carriage.
How Miss Vee squared it with Aunty is a puzzle I never expect to find out the answer to; but I'll risk her. She's a pink queen, she is, and after that one waltz with her I can look cold-eyed at a row of Tessie girls stretchin' from here to the Battery!
CHAPTER XII
LANDING ON A SIDE STREET
It was a little matter between me and Mother Sykes that starts me off to hunt a new boardin' place. Lovely old girl, Mother Sykes is, one of the kind that calls everybody "Deary" and collects in advance every Saturday night. She's got one of them inquisitive landlady noses that looks like it was made for pryin' up trunk covers and pokin' into bureau drawers.
That don't bother me any, though. It's only when I misses my swell outfit, the one Benny had built for me to wear at his weddin', that I gets sore. Course, she'd only borrowed it for Pa Sykes to wear on a Sunday afternoon call, him bein' a little runt of a gent, with watery eyes and a red nose, that never does anything on his own hook. And if he hadn't denied it so brassy I shouldn't have called him down so hard, right in the front hall with half the roomers listenin'.
"Dreamed it, eh, did I?" says I. "Well, listen here, Sykesy! Next time I has an optical illusion of you paradin' out in any of my uniform, there'll be doin's before the Sergeant!"
Then Mother Sykes rushes up from the kitchen and saves the fam'ly honor by throwin' an indignation fit. I don't know how long it lasted; but she was gettin' purple clear up under her false front when I slid out the door and left her at it. Next day I noticed the sign hung up; but I didn't know which sky parlor was vacant until I strolls in at five-fifteen Friday night and finds my things out in the hall and a new lodger in my room.