’You must not make me laugh,’ said Salome, ’or I shall drop the glasses from under my arms.’
’Then let me take them,’ said Philip promptly; ’you have two in your hands, that suffices. I tire you with my reminiscences of lodging-house life?’
’It is the only subject on which my conversation flows. I do not know why it is that when I speak on politics I have a difficulty in expressing my ideas, but when I come on landlady-dom, the words boil out of my heart, like the water from a newly-tapped artesian well. I have a great mind to tell you my Scarborough experiences.’
’Once when I was out of sorts I went to the sea-coast for a change—but I am detaining you.’
’Well, I will put down the glasses and bulbs in the Pummy cupboard and return to hear your story.’
Instead of going downstairs with Salome, Philip, though he had relieved her of two glasses, went with them to the drawing-room, whence she had taken them—which was in no way assisting her. Moreover, when he was there, he put down the glasses on the table and began examining the names of the bulbs—double pink blush, single china blue, the queen of the yellows, and so on. He had offered to help Salome, but he was doing nothing of the kind; he waited till she had filled the glasses with water, planted a couple of bulbs in them, and consigned them to the depths of the cupboard. When she returned to the parlour, he was still examining the names of the tubers.
’Now,’ said he, ’I will tell you about my landlady at Scarborough.’ He made no attempt to carry down glasses, he detained the girl from prosecuting her work. ’I was at Scarborough for a week, and when I left my lodgings the landlady charged me thirty shillings for a toilet set, because there was a crack in the soap-dish. I had not injured it. I pointed out the fact that the crack was gray with age, that the discolouration betokened antiquity; but she was inaccessible to reason, impossible to convince. The injury done to the soap-dish spoiled the whole set, she said, and I must pay for an entire set. I might have contested the point at law; but it was hardly worth my while, so I agreed to pay the thirty shillings, only I stipulated that I should carry off the fractured soap-dish with me. Then she resisted; the soap-dish, she argued, could be of no use to me. I must leave it, and at last, when I persisted in my resolve, she let me off with a couple of shillings.’