Page:Herbert Jenkins - Bindle.djvu/30

 might have been a smile still-born passed across Mrs. Bindle's face.

As the meal progressed Bindle began to see the folly of his cowardice. He had doomed himself to a night's walking the streets. He cudgelled his brains how to avoid the consequences of his indiscretion. He looked covertly at Mrs. Bindle. There was nothing in the sharp hatchet-like face, with its sandy hair drawn tightly away from each side and screwed into a knot behind, that suggested compromise. Nor was there any suggestion of a relenting nature in that hard grey line that served her as a mouth.

No, there was nothing for it but to "carry the banner," unless he could raise sufficient money to pay for a night's lodging.

"Saw Ginger to-day," he remarked conversationally, as he removed a shred of meat from a back tooth with his fork.

"Don't talk to me of Ginger!" snapped Mrs. Bindle.

Such retorts made conversation difficult.

It was Mrs. Bindle's question as to whether he did not think it about time he started that gave Bindle the inspiration he sought. For more than a week the one clock of the household, a dainty little travelling affair that he had purchased of a fellow-workman, it having "sort o' got lost" in a move, had stopped and showed itself impervious to all persuasion. Bindle decided to take it, ostensibly to a clock-repairer,