Page:Under the Deodars - Kipling (1890).djvu/77

 not sleep in my stays. And such news, too! Oh, do unlace me, there's a darling! The Dowd—The Dancing Master—I and the Hawley Boy—you know the North verandah?"

"How can I do anything if you spin round like this?" protested Mrs. Mallowe, fumbling with the knot of the lace.

"Oh! I forgot. I must tell my tale without the aid of your eyes. Do you know you've lovely eyes, dear. Well to begin with, I took the Hawley Boy to set out with."

"Did he want much taking?"

"Lots! There was an arrangement of loose-boxes in the verandah, and she was in the next one talking to him."

"Which? How? Explain."

"You know what I mean—The Dowd and The Dancing Master. We could hear every word, and we listened shamelessly—'specially the Hawley Boy. Polly, I quite love that woman!"

"This is interesting. There! Now turn round. What happened."

"One moment. Ah—h! Blessed relief. I've been looking forward to taking them off for the last half hour—which is ominous at my time of life. But, as I was saying, we listened and heard The Dowd drawl worse than ever. She drops her final g's like a barmaid or a blue-blooded Aide-de-Camp. 'Look he-ere, you're gettin' too fond o' me,' she said, and The Dancing Master owned that it was so in language that nearly made me ill. The Dowd reflected for a while, then we heard her say: 'Look he-ere, Mister Bent, why are you such an aw-ful liar?' I nearly exploded while The Dancing Master denied the charge. It seems that he never told her he was a married man."

"I said he wouldn't."

"And she had taken this to heart, on personal grounds, I suppose. She drawled along for five minutes, reproaching him with his perfidy, and grew quite motherly. 'Now you've got a nice little wife of your own—you have,' she said. 'She's ten times too good for a fat old man like you, and, look he-ere