“Did you hear what this gentleman said?”
“Yes, mother.”
“It’s as well,” she remarked to him, “to have a witness. Makes all the difference in a court of law.” She found her handkerchief. “I’ve always made it a special boast that I never had to tell a lodger to go, and I do think it’s hard—”
“Look here, ma’am,” said Porter Swan, still in aggressive tones, “we don’t want to quarrel. We want to arrange this trifling affair in a nice, sensible, amicable way.”
“If you’re going to settle it,” she said, “I’ll go and make out the bill.”
“Let me understand first of all,” repressing annoyance. “What does your claim actually amount to?”
She mentioned the sum.
“And you’ve got the assurance to stand there and demand all that for keeping this young country lad for three days! Why, it’s my opinion you’re nothing more nor less than a female swindler.”
“Martha!” she called. “Are you still listening, dear?”
Porter Swan went on to the house of his own landlady, where he complained with bitterness of the absence of a mat and the condition of the wallpaper; she soothed him with a cup of tea so excellent that it stood outside the pale of criticism. In his room he used the hair-brush with considerable fierceness, a process that seemed to arouse ideas, for after a few moments’ consideration he changed his collar and fixed a necktie hitherto reserved for Sundays, Good Friday, and Christmas Day. Then he set out, whistling as he went, announcing cheerfully to his landlady that he would return in less than half an hour. If her husband came in, she was to beg him to stay up: Porter Swan would have something to relate to him. In Douglas Street he purchased a threepenny bunch of chrysanthemums—all white.