“Papa,” she said on one occasion to the fine, red-faced, handsome man of forty, who, puffing and fizzing like a bursting bottle, lay on the bed wrapped in a dressing-gown, and every now and then enunciating, in spite of himself, about one letter of some word or words that were almost oaths; “papa, will you not come downstairs this evening?” She spoke distinctly: he was rather deaf.
“Afraid not—eh-hh!—very much afraid I shall not, Elfride. Piph-ph-ph! I can’t bear even a handkerchief upon this deuced toe of mine, much less a stocking or slipper—piph-ph-ph! There ’tis again! No, I shan’t get up till to-morrow.”
“Then I hope this London man won’t come; for I don’t know what I should do, papa.”
“Well, it would be awkward, certainly.”
“I should hardly think he would come to-day.”
“Why?”
“Because the wind blows so.”
“Wind! What ideas you have, Elfride! Who ever heard of wind stopping a man from doing his business? The idea of this toe of mine coming on so suddenly!...If he should come, you must send him up to me, I suppose, and then give him some food and put him to bed in some way. Dear me, what a nuisance all this is!”
“Must he have dinner?”
“Too heavy for a tired man at the end of a tedious journey.”