However, I persuade Mr. Lopside to take a more cheerful view of his position, and to undertake the job.
For the next three hours there is much hammering in all parts of the house. My neighbours must imagine that I have taken violently to spiritual manifestations. Wherever I wander I find my worthy assistant hard at work covering the borders of the doors with a material that looks like elongated eels in a condition of mummification—if I may be permitted to use such an expression. Now he is standing on a ledge level with the hall lamp; now he is reclining sideways beside an entrance-protecting rug; now he is hanging by the bannisters midway between two landings. The day grows apace. It is soon afternoon, and rapidly becomes night. When the lights are beginning to appear in the streets without, Mr. Lopside has done. My house is rescued from the draughts.
"You won't be troubled much more, Sir," says he, as he glances contemptuously at a door embedded in antiplutocratic tubing. "Keep those shut and the draughts won't get near you—at least so I think, although I may be wrong. Thank you, Sir. Quite correct. Good evening."
And he leaves me, muffled up in his overcoat, and still clinging to his basket, with its burden of saws, hammers, chisels, and nails of various dimensions. I enter the dining-room with an air of satisfaction as I hear his echoing footsteps on the pavement without, and attempt to close the door. It will do almost everything, but it won't shut. I give up the dining-room, and enter my study. Again, I try to close the door. But no; it has caught the infection of its neighbour and also declines to close. I try the doors of the drawing-room, bedroom, and the dressing-room. But no, my efforts are in vain. None of them will close. The wind howls, and the draughts rush in with redoubled fury. They triumph meanly in my despair.
There is only one thing to do, and I determine to do it. I must send for Mr. Lopside to take away as soon as possible his antiplutocratic tubing. After all he was right when he had those, alas! unheeded misgivings. He said "he might be wrong"—and was!
THINGS ONE SAYS WITHOUT THINKING.
"I'm so sorry you've had to come and Dine with us without your Husband, Lizzy. I suppose the real truth is that, being Lent, he's doing Penance by dining at home!"