Page:The Van Roon (IA thevanroon00snaiiala).pdf/22

 stockings, fancy shoes and bare necks, it was hard, even for experts like himself, to say what the world was coming to. Girls of the new generation were terribly independent. They would sauce you as soon as look at you, and there was no doubt they knew far more than their grandmothers. In taking under his roof the only child of a half-brother who had died worth precious little, S. Gedge Antiques was simply asking for trouble. At the same time there was no need to deny that June had begun well, and if at eight o'clock the next morning he was in a position to say, "Mrs. R. you can take another day off and get yourself a better billet," he would feel a happier man.

A voice with a ring in it came from the shop threshold. "Uncle Si, how many potatoes shall I cook?"

"Three middling size. One for me, one for you, one for William if he comes. And if he don't come, he can have it cold for his supper."

"Or I can fry it," said the voice from the threshold.

"You can fry it?" S. Gedge peered towards the voice over the top of his "buying" spectacles. "Before we go in for fancy work let us see what sort of a job you make of a plain bilin'. Pigs mustn't begin to fly too early—not in the West Central postal district."

"I don't know much about pigs," said June, calmly, "but I'll boil a potato with anyone."

"And eat one too I expect," said S. Gedge severely closuring the incident.

The axiom he had just laid down applied to young female pigs particularly.