Page:Stevenson and Quiller-Couch - St Ives .djvu/358

 "The pleasure would be mutual, sir," said I; but I must say my heart was not in my words, and as I watched Mr, Byfield departing, I desired nothing less than to pursue the acquaintance.

One more ordeal remained for me to pass. I carried my senseless load upstairs to our lodging, and was admitted by the landlady in a tall white nightcap and with an expression singularly grim. She lighted us into the sitting-room; where, when I had seated Rowley in a chair, she dropped me a cast-iron courtesy. I smelt gunpowder on the woman. Her voice tottered with emotion.

"I give ye nottice, Mr. Ducie," said she. "Dacent folks' houses . . ." And at that apparently temper cut off her utterance, and she took herself off without more words.

I looked about me at the room, the goggling Rowley, the extinguished fire; my mind reviewed the laughable incidents of the day and night; and I laughed out loud to myself—lonely and cheerless laughter!