Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/79

Rh shades of blue. Bob Cleaves was put up in the spare room for the night after Billy had exhausted the evening and a couple of neighbour cronies telling them all how he and Bob at first met in London, and the times, up and down, and the larks they had had together. One of the cronies listened in silence for an hour or so, and then clinched it—the silence—by saying, "Oh, well, what about havin' a half-pint afore bed?" Bob had been a school child with some of them, but none remembered him favourably, if at all. At the beerhouse Bob was introduced all round; and Billy had a quiet talk with him on the way back, and under the hedge, during which Bob kept saying, "Don't you bother, Billy," "I can put up anywheres," "You always were bothering about me," "I tell you I'll be alright," etc., etc.

That night there was a whispered consultation between Billy and Lizzie in bed. "A lot o' whisperin' goin' on," as guests say under similar and other circumstances. "A hell of a lot er whisperin' goin' on," as our Bill or Jim might say. And next morning Billy had another quiet talk with Bob, and Bob stayed on till Billy got him a job at the brickfields. And Bob stayed on as a boarder. It was a practical proposal, and Lizzie agreed to it; it was as easy to do for two as one, she said. Perhaps it occurred to her vaguely that the thing might make a little talk. It did. Paying boarders didn't come to the hutches every season. The women were indifferent to Bob, but viciously envious—keen on the subject. The men were not interested. And the men were always very