"Here, that"s enough of that," said a quiet, determined voice, and the soft lines of the policeman"s face hardened.
"Wot she want to say it was to let for?" he grumbled as he loped towards the hand-cart.
""Ere "ave I come wiv all these things to take the blinkin" "ouse, then there"s all this ruddy fuss. Are you goin" to get over into that blinkin" garden and fetch out them stutterin" things, or must I chuck you over?"
The last remark was addressed to Charley, who, with a wary eye on his parent, had been watching events, hoping against hope that the policeman would manifest signs of aggression, and carry on the good work that Mrs.
Bindle had begun.
Charley glanced interrogatingly at the policeman. Seeing in his eye no encouragement to mutiny, he sidled towards the gate, a watchful eye still on his father. A moment later he was engaged in handing the furniture over the railings.
After the man had deposited the colander, a tin-bath, and two saucepans in the barrow, he seemed suddenly smitten with an idea.
He tugged a soiled newspaper from his trouser pocket. Glancing at it, he walked over to where the policeman was engaged in moving on the crowd.
"Read that," he said, thrusting the paper under the officer"s nose and pointing to a pa.s.sage with a dirty forefinger. "Don"t that say the blinkin" "ouse is to let? You oughter run "er in for false----" He paused. "For false----" he repeated.
With a motion of his hand, the policeman brushed aside the newspaper.
"Move along there, please. Don"t block up the footpath," he said.
At length the barrow was laden.
The policeman stood by with the air of a man whose duty it is to see the thing through.
The crowd still loitered. They had even yet hopes of a breach of the peace.
The big man was reluctant to go without a final effort to rehabilitate himself. Once more he drew the paper from his pocket and approached the policeman.
"Wot she put that in for?" he demanded, indicating the advertis.e.m.e.nt.
Ignoring the remark, the policeman drew his notebook once more from his pocket.
"I shall want your name and address," he said with an official air.
"Wotjer want it for?"
"Now, then, come along," said the policeman, and the big man gave his name and address.
"Wot she do it for?" he repeated, "an" wot"s going to "appen to "er for "ittin" me in the stummick?"
"You"d better get along," said the policeman.
With a grumble in his throat, the big man placed himself between the shafts of the barrow and, having blasted Charley into action, moved off.
"Made a rare mess of the garding, ain"t "e?" remarked the rag-and-bone man to the woman with the tweed cap and the hat-pin.
"Blinkin" profiteer!" was her comment.
II
"It"s all your fault. Look wot they done." Mrs. Bindle surveyed the desolation which, that morning, had been a garden.
The bed was trodden down, the geraniums broken, and the lobelia border showed big gaps in its blue and greenness.
"It"s always the same with anything I "ave," she continued. "You always spoil it."
"But it wasn"t me," protested Bindle. "It was that big cove with the pinafore."
"Who put that advertis.e.m.e.nt in?" demanded Mrs. Bindle darkly. "That"s what _I_ should like to know."
"Somebody wot "ad put the wrong number," suggested Bindle.
"I"d wrong number them if I caught them."
Suddenly she turned and made a bolt inside the house.
Bindle regarded the open door in surprise. A moment later his quick ears caught the sound of Mrs. Bindle"s hysterical sobbing.
"Now ain"t that jest like a woman?" was his comment. "She put "im to sleep in the first round, an" still she ain"t "appy. Funny things, women," he added.
That evening as Mrs. Bindle closed the front door behind her on her way to the Wednesday temperance service, she turned her face to the garden; it had been in her mind all day.
She blinked incredulously. The lobelia seemed bluer than ever, and within the circular border was a veritable riot of flowering geraniums.
"It"s that Bindle again," she muttered with indrawn lips as she turned towards the gate. "Pity he hasn"t got something better to do with his money." Nevertheless she placed upon the supper-table an apple-tart that had been made for to-morrow"s dinner, to which she added a cup of coffee, of which Bindle was particularly fond.
CHAPTER VII
MRS. BINDLE DEMANDS A HOLIDAY
I
"I see they"re starting summer-camps." Mrs. Bindle looked up from reading the previous evening"s paper. She was invariably twelve hours late with the world"s news.
Bindle continued his breakfast. He was too absorbed in Mrs. Bindle"s method of serving dried haddock with bubble-and-squeak to evince much interest in alien things.
"That"s right," she continued after a pause, "don"t you answer. Your ears are in your stomach. Pleasant companion you are. I might as well be on a desert island for all the company you are."
"If you wasn"t such a d.a.m.n good cook, Mrs. B., I might find time to say pretty things to you." It was only in relation to her own cooking that Bindle"s conversational lapses pa.s.sed without rebuke.
"There are to be camps for men, camps for women, and family camps,"
continued Mrs. Bindle without raising her eyes from the paper before her.