Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/313

 'Some people'―said Bill, reflectively, but with a tinge of indignation in his tone, as they crossed the street―'some people can afford to ride in trams.'

'What's your trouble, Mrs. Aspinall―if it's a fair thing to ask?' said Bill, as they turned the corner.

This was all she wanted, and more; and when, about a mile later, she paused for breath, he drew a long one, gave a short whistle, and said:

'Well, it's red-hot!'

Thus encouraged, she told her story again, and some parts of it for the third and fourth and even fifth time―and it grew longer, as our stories have a painful tendency to do when we re-write them with a view to condensation.

But Bill heroically repeated that it was 'red-hot.'

'And I dealt off the grocer for fifteen years, and the wood-and-coal man for ten, and I lived in that house nine years last Easter Monday and never owed a penny before,' she repeated for the tenth time.

'Well, that's a mistake,' reflected Bill. 'I never dealt off nobody more'n twice in my life.…I heerd you was married again, Mrs. Aspinall―if it's a right thing to ask?'

'Wherever did you hear that? I did get married again―to my sorrow.'

'Then you ain't Mrs. Aspinall―if it's a fair thing to ask?'

'Oh, yes! I'm known as Mrs. Aspinall. They all call me Mrs. Aspinall.'

'I understand. He cleared, didn't he? Run away?'

'Well, yes―no―he'