He would have liked to make some suitable reply, but the eyes of his neighbour were fixed upon the stage from which Signora Louisa’s chair was being removed. The curtain dropped.
When it rose again the audience drew a long breath. A pasteboard rock, much the size of the Signora, filled the place where she had sat, and to it, by a rope, was attached a middle-aged woman, whose considerable good looks had departed, leaving a cloud of rouge behind. Her position seemed to have produced no sort of effect upon her, for her face was as placid as if she were at her own fireside. She looked not unlike a dog tied up outside a public-house and waiting for its master. She was enveloped in blue muslin, which stopped midway between knee and ankle, and left her arms and shoulders bare.
“’Ere we ’ave the drama of St. George and the Dragon,” announced the showman. “The Princess, forsook by all, waits ’er doom.”
“The hussy!” exclaimed the farmer’s wife, turning severely on Howlie. “Go you home, boy, ’tis no place for decent folks. Princess, indeed! I’d Princess her.”
Howlie smiled and looked tolerantly at his enemy, but made no effort to move; had he wished to, he could hardly have done so, the crowd was so thick. Awful puffings and roarings proclaimed the approach of the Dragon, and the farmer’s wife began to get nervous.
Anything was to be expected from such a godless exhibition, and, in spite of a high nose and a strict moral attitude, her heart began to quake. As in the case of most women, fear made her angry. She took Howlie fiercely by the arm.
“D’ye hear me, boy?” she cried.
“Oi feel yew, anyhow,” said he.
The Dragon had now passed the wings of the stage, and his dire appearance was producing a great effect. The owner of the black silk bonnet turned and found herself confronted by George and Mary, who were wedged up in the row immediately behind her.
“Help me out o’ this, young man,” she said authoritatively, but with a suspicious quaver in her voice. “I don’t think much of that sort o’ show, an’ I don’t think much of you, neither, letting your missus stand looking at loose sights.”