Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/48

Rh "Him. Himself. The old gent," said the boy. "He don't let them out of his 'ands except to the charlady as cleans up a bit sometimes. He's close, he is."

"And what's his name?" asked Jane insinuatingly.

"Oh, go along, miss, do," said the boy. "I ain't going to get into trouble along of gells—coming round me like spinxes. I see your game. Worm his name and address out of a chap and then go and badger him same as you're doing me now. Lose me my job as like as not. Good morning, miss."

"So that's no good," said Lucilla, as they walked away.

"I don't think he meant sphinxes. He meant sirens. It's rather nice to be sirens, don't you think?"

"Not when Ulysses is eating out of paper-bags."

"I wish we'd asked the charlady's name."

"Perhaps our charlady would know?"

Their charlady knew a little. She knew why the house was so definitely not to be let, and told them as she compounded a plum cake.

"The gentleman as owns it," she told the girls, "he don't live in it 'cause it's too big, him being a single man. And he's rolling in money; he just only let it to keep it from the damp, so to speak. The last tenant, he didn't mean no harm. He thought the old gentleman would be only too pleased—he did it all at his own expense and looked for thanks, instead of which explosions and Catherine wheels and no renewing the lease. 'Out you go, my lord,' and double quick it was. The tenant, he was here to-day and gone to-morrow as the saying is. The old gentleman must have been a holy terror—it takes something to get anybody out of a house, doesn't it? But he went like a lamb, explaining to the last, with the very cab at the door, that he had only done it to oblige and meant it all for the best. Don't take the stoned ones, if it's all the same to you, miss. I shall have to weigh up again."

"Sorry," said Lucilla, and left off eating raisins. "But what did he do? What was it he meant all for the best?"