"Good girl," said Bill, looking after her. "She'd make a fine wife, she would. I ain't goin' to 'ave no cap an' apron put on my Lucy, Alf; she can keep out o' the way when there's company about, but I'm goin' to keep 'er dressed as she is, see?"
"Seems to me," Alf answered crossly, "if you don't 'urry up an' think what's to be done, you an' your Lucy'll 'ave to part company any'ow. Once that ole woman gets to Ditchwater Park she'll make these 'ere parts too 'ot to 'old us. An' she must be 'arf way there by now."
Bill gave a scornful laugh.
"I'm ashamed of you, Alf, gettin' the wind up like that. I am, really. Tell you what to do. Tell Eustace to fix 'er whenever she tries to talk or write about us—she an' the parson, too. Then she can't do no 'arm to anybody! 'Ow's that for a scheme, eh?"
Bill put his thumbs in the armholes of his pictorial waistcoat; Alf stared in speechless admiration.
"Lumme," he said at last. "You do think o' things. But 'ow d'you know that Eustace can do it?"
Bill held up the old lady's brother's copy of the Arabian Nights.
"I been readin' this," he said, "seems to be just the sort o' thing they used to like doing in them times. I tell you, I'm glad it's us as 'ave got Eustace an' not the 'Un, because ..."
Fearing that Bill was about to bring up once more his favorite scheme for using Eustace to kidnap the Kaiser and end the war Alf cut him short by producing his talisman. Lucy, entering the room at the same moment with a full tankard of beer for her lord, caught sight of the Button and instantly prostrated herself. The tankard reached the ground just before she did, with the result that Lucy's clothes and hair and Lucy's devout forehead weltered in a foaming pool of wasted beer.
Alf gasped.