"
"Which? How? Explain."
"You know what I mean--The Dowd and The Dancing Master. We could hear every
word and we listened shamelessly--'specially the Hawley Boy. Polly, I quite
love that woman!"
"This is interesting. There! Now turn round. What happened?"
"One moment. Ah-h! Blessed relief. I've been looking forward to taking them
off for the last half-hour--which is ominous at my time of life. But, as I was
saying, we listened and heard The Dowd drawl worse than ever. She drops her
final g's like a barmaid or a blue-blooded Aide-de-Camp. 'Look he-ere, you're
gettin' too fond 0' me,' she said, and The Dancing Master owned it was so in
language that nearly made me ill. The Dowd reflected for a while. Then we
heard her say, 'Look he-ere, Mister Bent, why are you such an awful liar?' I
nearly exploded while The Dancing Master denied the charge. It seems that he
never told her he was a married man."
"I said he wouldn't."
'~And she had taken this to heart, on personal grounds, I suppose. She drawled
along for five minutes, reproaching him with his perfidy and grew quite
motherly. 'Now you've got a nice little wife of your own--you have,' she said.
'She's ten times too good for a fat old man like you, and, look he-ere, you
never told me a word about her, and I've been thinkin' about it a good deal,
and I think you're a liar.
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