"W'y h'are you so suspicious, Mrs. Malone? 'Ave you missed one?"
"Niver you mind prying into the secrets of me toilet. I 'll have you to understand--"
At this moment a ragged towel, soaking wet as the result of its immersion in the pail, sailed over the top of the screen and landed with a gurgling squash, fair and square on the back of the landlady's neck, dampening her collar and best cap so thoroughly that the starched linen immediately subsided into floppy limpness.
"Merciful powers!" ejaculated Mrs. Malone, jumping a foot at least. "Phwat 's thot?"
Buster fled downstairs fearful of impending massacre, while Moore behind the screen began giving an imitation of a man in the throes of an ice-cold bath, bursting into musicless song punctuated with exclamations of discomfort and shivery comments on his condition.
"She is far from the land,"
he shouted, slopping the water from pitcher to pail and back again, adding sotto voce, "But not from the landlady, worse luck--Oh! I 'll die of the cold! I know I will. Oh, mother, it's a cake of ice your beloved Thomas is fast becoming.
"Where her young hero sleeps,
--Only her young hero is freezing instead of sleeping. Help! Help! Whew-w-w! Murder, murder, I 'm dying of the chill!"
Mrs. Malone in speechless rage had unwound the wet towel from around her neck.