Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/206

 never delivered for, after she had lingered timidly at the kitchen door for nearly half an hour, two of the Beemer boys caught her, pinched her, pulled her hair, and sent her home weeping.

A feeling of unrest possessed them. Bastien became exacting, ill-tempered. Everyone knew that things were not going well with the house, and, as in all business concerns, the employees grew slack and indifferent as they felt prosperity departing.

Charley Bye was all for taking Kirke's advice and starting a boarding-house of their own. He was sick and tired of being ordered about by Bastien, of eternally tripping over his own toes as he carried endless trays of drinks to disrespectful customers. Now he pictured himself as head of a crowded boarding-house with nothing much to do but carve the roast and give a hand with the coals and slops.

"I were a-dreamin' last night of my old buck rabbit," he said. "That's the third night in succession I've dreamed on him and it always means a change. One ear for'ard he had, p'intin' towards The Duke and one ear back'ard, p'intin' towards Beemer's, and he was a-wigglin' of his nose in a sneerin' way he had. By gum, I was all of a sweat when I woke, and I says to myself—'Charley, old boy, it's toime for a move.

Mrs. Bye regarded him with a strange mixture of contempt and awe. Charley's dreams were a puzzle to her; yet it was never safe wholly to ignore them, for she could remember more than one occasion when disaster had followed the disregarding of their warnings. Dreams of the dead rabbit were especially significant.

It was through Pearl that they at last got intimate news of Delight. Pearl no longer worked at The Duke, so she was free to call on a friend at Beemer's, though she did