"Nonsense! it didn't cost a fifth of it."
But Mr. Plunket knew he had the best right to know, for he had paid the bills.
From the first, Mr. Plunket felt that opposition was useless. A natural repugnance to change and a horror of the disorder and discomfort of moving caused him to make a feeble resistance; but the opposing current swept strongly against him, and he had to yield.
The house in Seventh street was taken, and, in due time, the breaking up and change came. Carpets were lifted, boxes, barrels, and trunks packed, and all the disorderly elements of a regular moving operation called into activity. Every preparation had been made on the day previous to the contemplated flight; the cars were to be at the door by eight o'clock on the next morning. In anticipation of this early movement, the children had been dragged out of bed an hour before their usual time for rising. They were, in consequence, cross and unreasonable; but not more so than mother, grandmother, and nurse, all of whom either boxed them, scolded them, or jerked them about in a most violent manner. Breakfast was served early; but such a breakfast! the least said about that the better. It was well there were no keen appetites to turn away with disappointment.
"Strange that the cars are not here!" said Mr. Plunket, who had put himself in going order. "It's nearly half an hour past the time now. Oh, dear! confound all this moving, say I."
"That's a strange way for you to talk before children, Mr. Plunket," retorted his wife.
"And this is a much stranger way for you to act, madam; for ever dragging your husband and children about from post to pillar. For my part, I feel like Noah's dove, without a place to rest the sole of my foot."
"Mr. Plunket!"
"Mrs. Plunket!"
A war of words was about commencing, but the furniture-cars drove up at the moment, when an armistice took place.