"Cable reply to Malta. Altogether too bad not hearing from you," I said.
A blind, hasty, cruel telegram, but thank God she never received it!
M.C.
[END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM]
NINETY-EIGHTH CHAPTER
Day by day it became more and more difficult for me to throw dust in my
own eyes about the Olivers.
One evening on reaching their house a little after six, as usual, I
found the front door open, the kitchen empty save for baby, who, sitting
up in her cot, was holding quiet converse with her toes, and the two
Olivers talking loudly (probably by pre-arrangement) in the room
upstairs.
The talk was about baby, which was "a noosance," interfering with a
man's sleep by night and driving him out of his home by day. And how
much did they get for it? Nothing, in a manner of speaking. What did the
woman (meaning me) think the "bleedin' place" was--"a philanthropic
institooshun" or a "charity orginisation gime"?
After this I heard the bricklayer thunder downstairs in his heavy boots
and go out of the house without coming into the kitchen, leaving his
wife (moral coward that he was) to settle his account with me.
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