It was of no use to continue the contest, and Clara bethought herself of a little ‘Etna’ she had in her bedroom. She went to the druggist’s, bought some methylated spirit, and obtained what she wanted.
Mrs Cork had one virtue and one weakness. Her virtue was cleanliness, but she persecuted the ‘blacks,’ not because she objected to dirt as dirt, but because it was unauthorised, appeared without permission at irregular hours, and because the glittering polish on varnished paint and red mahogany was a pleasure to her. She liked the dirt, too, in a way, for she enjoyed the exercise of her ill-temper on it and the pursuit of it to destruction. Her weakness was an enormous tom-cat which had a bell round its neck and slept in a basket in the kitchen, the best-behaved and most moral cat in the parish. At half-past nine every evening it was let out into the back-yard and vanished. At ten precisely it was heard to mew and was immediately admitted. Not once in a twelvemonth did that cat prolong its love making after five minutes to ten.
Mrs Hopgood went upstairs to her room, Mrs Cork following and closing the door.
‘If you please, ma’am, I wish to give you notice to leave this day week.’
‘What is the matter, Mrs Cork?’
‘Well, ma’am, for one thing, I didn’t know as you’d bring a bird with you.’
It was a pet bird belonging to Madge.
‘But what harm does the bird do? It gives no trouble; my daughter attends to it.’
‘Yes, ma’am, but it worrits my Joseph—the cat, I mean. I found him the other mornin’ on the table eyin’ it, and I can’t a-bear to see him urritated.’
‘I should hardly have thought that a reason for parting with good lodgers.’