"John, you're a fool! She's Marianne's cook, and she wants me to find her another. Of course!"
"But what's her game? What's Marianne's cook's little game? What's she been a-takin' shares in? Where's she been selling her dripping to? Tell away, Lotty!—spit it out!" But he does not forward matters, for he again says "Elizabeth Barclay" several times, and finishes up with "Well!"
"When you've done." A pause. "She's going to marry a corn-factor."
Mr. Eldridge closes one eye. "Females do," he says; and then adds, quite inexplicably: "I shouldn't wonder if he was in the Brixton Road."
"It doesn't matter whether he is or isn't. The question is, where am I to go to find a really good plain cook for Marianne?"
"Ah!—that's the question."
"Well, but you might help, instead of looking like a gaby."
"Why not ask that party?"
"What party?"
"Over Clapham way. Some connection. Where you got Ellen Sayce." Mrs. Eldridge looks her despair, for was not Ellen Sayce a girl who wept on the stairs instead of doing them down, and had to return to her parents? Nevertheless the attempt was worth a postcard, which was written as Mr. Eldridge—whose peritonitis had gone—trotted away down a snow-swept footway slapping his gloves, and saying "Elizabeth Barclay" at intervals. But she omitted the date, as she decided not to post it then and there, but to exhaust her other resources first. Ellen Sayce was a poor result.