“But Mr. B---- knows I swore,” he insisted.
“A gentleman,” I replied stiffly, “cannot remember for many hours what a
waiter has said to him.”
“No, sir, but--”
To stop him I had to say, “And--ah--William, your wife is decidedly
better. She has eaten the tapioca--all of it.”
“How can you know, sir?”
“By an accident.”
“Irene signed to the window?”
“No.”
“Then you saw her and went out and--”
“How dare you, William?”
“Oh, sir, to do that for me! May God bl--”
“William.”
He was reinstated in the dining-room, but often when I looked at him I
seemed to see a dying wife in his face, and so the relations between us
were still strained. But I watched the girl, and her pantomime was so
illuminating that I knew the sufferer had again cleaned the platter on
Tuesday, had attempted a boiled egg on Wednesday (you should have seen
Irene chipping it in Pall Mall, and putting in the salt), but was in a
woful state of relapse on Thursday.
“Is your mother very ill to-day, Miss Irene?” I asked, as soon as I had
drawn her out of range of the club-windows.
“My!” she exclaimed again, and I saw an ecstatic look pass between her
and a still smaller girl with her, whom she referred to as a neighbour.
I waited coldly. William's wife, I was informed, had looked like nothing
but a dead one till she got the brandy.
“Hush, child,” I said, shocked. “You don't know how the dead look.”
“Bless yer!” she replied.
Assisted by her friend, who was evidently enormously impressed by
Irene's intimacy with me, she gave me a good deal of miscellaneous
information, as that William's real name was Mr. Hicking, but that he
was known in their street, because of the number of his shirts, as Toff
Hicking. That the street held he should get away from the club before
two in the morning, for his missus needed him more than the club needed
him. That William replied (very sensibly) that if the club was short of
waiters at supper-time some of the gentlemen might be kept waiting for
their marrow-bone. That he sat up with his missus most of the night, and
pretended to her that he got some nice long naps at the club. That what
she talked to him about mostly was the kid. That the kid was in another
part of London (in charge of a person called the old woman), because
there was an epidemic in Irene's street.
“And what does the doctor say about your mother?”
“He sometimes says she would have a chance if she could get her kid
back.”
“Nonsense.”
“And if she was took to the country.”
“Then why does not William take her?”
“My! And if she drank porty wine.”
“Doesn't she?”
“No. But father, he tells her 'bout how the gentlemen drinks it.”