“I’d rayther get it without paying nothing at all.”
Porter Swan went off duty at seven, having first washed with unusual vigour and changed his official headgear for the bowler hat of private life. Near the suburban station he bought a cigar, and, lighting it, strode towards Railway Terrace, rehearsing the coming debate on the way. At the door of No. 17 he gave a sharp, definite knock and frowned at some children who ran up to watch the course of events. He had to knock again, and this time also rattled the flap of the letter-box to express impatience.
“Well?” asked the trim, determined woman at the open doorway. “What are you kicking up all this row for?”
“I don’t want to make any unpleasantness, or any un-anything else,” he began truculently, “but you’ve got a tin box belonging to one of our young men, and I have to request, ma’am, that you hand it over to me at your early convenience.”
“Pay me his week’s board and lodging, and you can take not only the tin box, but all that’s in it.”
“Goes against the grain,” he said loudly, “to argue with a lady, but I ask you one simple question. Have you, since you’ve taken to letting, ever had a lodger that stayed so long as a month?”
“The last two,” she replied calmly, “stayed until they got married.”
“They must have had iron constitutions,” he argued.
“Martha!” she called, turning her head.
“Yes, mother.”