“Prevented?” ses two or three of ’em.
“Yes,” ses Mrs. Pearce; “the night
afore he was to ’ave sailed there was some silly
mistake over a diamond ring, and he got five years.
He gave a different name at the police-station, and
naturally everybody thought ’e went down with
the ship. And when he died in prison I didn’t
undeceive ’em.”
She took out her ’andkerchief, and while she
was busy with it Bill Flurry got up and went out on
tiptoe. Young Alf got up a second or two arterwards
to see where he’d gone; and the last Joe Morgan
and his missis see of the happy couple they was sitting
on one chair, and George Hatchard was making desprit
and ’artrending attempts to smile.
[Illustration: A DISTANT RELATIVE]
Mr. Potter had just taken Ethel Spriggs into the kitchen
to say good-by; in the small front room Mr. Spriggs,
with his fingers already fumbling at the linen collar
of ceremony, waited impatiently.
“They get longer and longer over their good-bys,”
he complained.
“It’s only natural,” said Mrs. Spriggs,
looking up from a piece of fine sewing. “Don’t
you remember—”
“No, I don’t,” said her husband,
doggedly. “I know that your pore father
never ’ad to put on a collar for me; and, mind
you, I won’t wear one after they’re married,
not if you all went on your bended knees and asked
me to.”
He composed his face as the door opened, and nodded
good-night to the rather over-dressed young man who
came through the room with his daughter.
The latter opened the front-door and passing out with
Mr. Potter, held it slightly open. A penetrating
draught played upon the exasperated Mr. Spriggs.
He coughed loudly.
“Your father’s got a cold,” said
Mr. Potter, in a concerned voice.
“No; it’s only too much smoking,”
said the girl. “He’s smoking all day
long.”
The indignant Mr. Spriggs coughed again; but the young
people had found a new subject of conversation.
It ended some minutes later in a playful scuffle,
during which the door acted the part of a ventilating
fan.
“It’s only for another fortnight,”
said Mrs. Spriggs, hastily, as her husband rose.
“After they’re spliced,” said the
vindictive Mr. Spriggs, resuming his seat, “I’ll
go round and I’ll play about with their front-door
till—”
He broke off abruptly as his daughter, darting into
the room, closed the door with a bang that nearly
extinguished the lamp, and turned the key. Before
her flushed and laughing face Mr. Spriggs held his
peace.
“What’s the matter?” she asked,
eying him. “What are you looking like that
for?”
“Too much draught—for your mother,”
said Mr. Spriggs, feebly. “I’m afraid
of her asthma agin.”
He fell to work on the collar once more, and, escaping
at last from the clutches of that enemy, laid it on
the table and unlaced his boots. An attempt to
remove his coat was promptly frustrated by his daughter.
