Her Celtic-grey eyes shone ominously.
“You’re not to go, Smith. I won’t have it. You couldn’t help being drunk when the burglars came.”
“‘Ush! Miss Francie,” said Smith, “the Master says I’ve got to.”
Francie put a hand into his.
“Dear Smith!”
Smith’s round face grew almost long.
“It’s my fault, Miss; I WAS tipsy, there’s no denyin’.”
“But how could you tell the burglars were coming?”
“I couldn’t, Miss Francie, and that’s a fact.”
“Well, then!”
“If I ‘adn’t been tipsy,” said Smith with sudden violence, “I’D ‘ave given ’em what for!” And he worked his arm up to the angle which best displayed his formidable biceps.
“Oh! Smith,” said Francie, “you ARE strong! Feel; I haven’t got ANY!” And she angled her arm, thin, like a stick. Then the thought coming to her that soon there would be no Smith to show her lack of muscle to, the water started into her eyes.
“You’re NOT to go,” she cried again. “Here’s Eustace, he’ll say so too.”
The youngest but one of the five young Rogers was now eleven, dark-haired and thin-faced like his sister, and, like her, grey-eyed, but of a calm which contrasted forcibly with Francie’s fervour. He was recovering from the mumps, which had conveniently delayed his return to school.
“Have you really got to go, Smiff?” he said. “I wouldn’t, if I were you. I should just stay.”
Smith smiled. His smile was that of the sun at noonday.
“Faver’ll forget,” added Eustace.
Smith closed an eye, a practice which beyond all things endeared him to children.
“Will’e, Master Eustace? I don’t fink.”
“I do fink,” said Eustace. “The best way wiv Faver is to take no notice. He can’t birch YOU; look at your muscle.”
Again Smith crooked his arm to the proper position. He never spent ten minutes with the children without having to do this at least once.
“Smith,” said Francie, “we’ll come with you and speak to Father.”
Smith shook his head.
“I expect he hasn’t seen your muscle,” said Eustace.
Smith smiled. Like all powerful, good-tempered, easy-going men, he was unable to say “No.”
“That’s settled then,” said Francie; “when Father comes in, Eustace and I will come for you. Come along, Eustace.”
She turned at the door: “You shan’t go–DEAR Smith!”
Smith in the centre of his pantry, slowly shook his rounded head.
He was still in undetermined mood when visited by the constable whom Roger had set in motion. Now the temperament of Smith was pre-eminently suited to the police. Sunk in humility, without edge, and highly human, it appealed to authority as cream to a cat. The constable, who had come to carp and question, remained to chat and quaff. He quaffed Roger’s beer, and said:
“S’far as I can see, ’twas accidental like; a man may sleep so sound, no burglar’d wake ’im. That was your trouble, mate. You’d ‘ad a nightcap no doubt. I’ll do me best with your governor.”
Upstairs in the dining-room Mrs. Roger was staring at the bronze clock and rehearsing a sentence which began:
“Roger, I wish you would reconsider your decision about Smith; there are many reasons why–” and then nothing would come but: “it will be out of the frying-pan into the fire,” which she could not feel to be quite dignified. Unaware of these forces being marshalled against him, Roger, alert, and with an eye on a new board announcing the sale of a house by auction, returned from the police station where he had been rendering a just and faithful account of his silver, and entered his hall with the latchkey which he had been one of the first householders to have made. As he divested himself of his overcoat a light, thin, ghostly shape flitted from the darkness under the stairs into the smell of mutton rising from the basement; another shape at the top of the stairs bestrode the banisters, waited till Roger had entered the dining-room, slid down with a run, and vanished also.
Startled by her husband’s entry, Mrs. Roger took the stopper out of the cut glass bottle of pickled walnuts on the sideboard, and said:
“Oh! Roger, I wish–I wish–”
“What do you wish?” said Roger. “Some nonsense. Don’t let that smell out; I can’t bear a vinegary smell.”
“It’s Smith,” murmured Mrs. Roger. “I wish you–”
“That’ll do,” said Roger; “he’s got to go.”
Mrs. Roger stoppered the bottle.
“Oh! very well, dear; only where we shall get–”
“Plenty of good fish in the sea,” said Roger. “Where’s that policeman they sent round?”
“He’s still in the basement, I fancy.”
“He would be. They’re no good! What’s this?”
Through the doorway was coming a procession led by Francie. It took up a position on the far side of the mahogany–from left to right, Francie, Smith, Eustace, and the policeman.
“How’s this, Smith?” said Roger, caressing his left whisker. “I told you to be off. Have you got something to say?”
“Yes,” said Francie, her voice shrill: “Smith’s not going.”
“What!” cried Roger.
“All wight, Faver!” said Eustace quietly.
“All right? What d’you mean by that, you impudent young shaver?”
“Seems as ‘ow your butler was asleep, Sir,” said the constable impressively.
“Of course he was asleep. He was drunk.”
“Well, Sir, I’d ‘ardly call it that,” said the constable. “Not up to snuff at the moment, as you might say.”
“If you’ve any excuse to make, Smith,” said Roger, “make it before you pack off.”
Smith shook his head. “None, Sir, I’m sure.”
On one side and the other Francie and Eustace tugged at his sleeves, as if inciting him to show his muscle.
“Very well then,” said Roger, “you can go. I’ll talk to you in a moment, constable. You children run off, and don’t let me catch you–”
“If Smith goes,” said Francie, loudly, “we’re going too.”
Roger stared. It was his first experience of revolt.
“Go to my study, you two,” he said, “and wait till I come. Mary, take them out.”
But over Mrs. Roger a spell seemed to have been cast; she did not move. Crimson shame had covered Smith’s face; the constable stood stolid. Roger’s spare figure stiffened. He made but half of either Smith or the constable, but the expression on his face, sharp, firm and sour, redressed the balance.
“Go along,” he said to Smith.
Smith moved towards the door, but the two children had placed their backs against it. Roger’s very whiskers seemed to go red.
“This is too much of a good thing,” burst from his tightened lips.
At this moment of exquisite deadlock the sense of duty which dominated a sober Smith came to the rescue. With a deep sigh he took a child by the belt with each hand, lifted them bodily from the door, set them down, and went out.
“Go to my study, you two,” said Roger again.
The two children went out into the hall.
“Are you going to the study, Fwancie?”
“He’ll birch us.”
“He shan’t,” said Eustace. “Let’s arm ourselves with knives.”
“No,” said Francie; “let’s go away with Smith.”
“Smiff will only bwing us back,” said Eustace; “let’s go by ourselves.”
“All right,” said Francie.
“We’ll take Faver’s umbwella and our money-box.”
“We shan’t be able to open it.”
“No, but we can sell it to someone; it wattles.”
“All right, quick!”
With their father’s umbrella and the locked money-box, the two children opened the front door and, running across Kensington Road, were soon in Hyde Park, the money-box rattling all the way.
“How much is there in it?” said Eustace.
“Four shillings and elevenpence.”
“Let’s sell it for five shillings, then. The box cost a shilling.”
“Who to?”
“We’ll find an old gentleman.”
They walked along the Row under the umbrella, for it was raining. Francie had neither hat nor coat, Eustace his school cap, black with a red stripe.
“Look!” said Francie. “There’s one!”
They approached a bench whereon sat a tall, bulky figure, who had placed his hands on the handle of his stick with a view to rising. He had a grey goatee beard, a grey beaver hat, and a long watch-chain looped on his brown velvet waistcoat.
Francie, who carried the money-box, held it out.
“Hullo!” said the old gentleman: “what have you got there?”
“It’s our money-box,” said Francie; “we want to sell it. It’s got four and elevenpence in coppers.”
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