[Later on, the remains of a geyser and part of a porcelain bath were picked up about six miles off, in the Walworth Road; and I understand that the police at Sevenoaks found the remnants of an alien gas-stove wandering about in a suspicious manner, and promptly interned it. But this is by the way.]
“Only a gas explosion!” exclaimed everybody in doleful disappointment. Mrs. Brash certainly looked relieved; but then she is a very nervous little woman with a weak heart.
“Well, I call it _too_ bad!” said Virginia. “Every solitary relative, friend, and acquaintance I possess, even to the third and fourth generation, has had a Zepp cross ‘right over their very road’; and every person I’ve met during the last twelve months boasts and brags of the way they’ve had them ‘exactly above their heads.’ And yet, do what I will, I can’t get a sight of even the tail of one.”
“Just my case,” said everybody else in chorus; “I seem to be the only one in London who hasn’t seen one.”
But Miss Thresher cut short our bemoanings over the hardness of our lot, by saying in her head-mistress voice—
“I’m afraid an excess of untutored imagination is one of the weaknesses of this age. We, however, can console ourselves with the knowledge that at least we are _truthful_; and truth, after all, is the greater asset”—looking witheringly at Miss Quirker.
I replied, “How about some hot coffee?” It was the most appropriate remark that I could think of on the spur of the moment.
Cook promptly offered to get it, while I went after tea-gowns and dressing-gowns and similar symbols of propriety for our shivering guests, who looked a trifle nondescript now that the lights were on. The man of the house had returned to assist at the explosion.
If Miss Thresher hoped that her last remark would quelch Miss Quirker, she was mistaken nothing can suppress that lady, and nothing is sacred to her. She will stalk up to your secret cupboard, no matter how boldly you may have labelled it “strictly private,” and drag out into broad daylight the most disreputable skeleton you keep in it, the one you packed away at the very back of the top shelf—and then be pained at your ingratitude!
As I entered the room with an armful of apparel I heard her saying to Miss Thresher, “Why don’t you put a flounce on the bottom? Those cheap flannelettes always shrink in the wash.... Oh, flannel is it?... Really! no one would ever think you gave that much for it, would they? At any rate I couldn’t sleep if I didn’t have them right down around my feet.”