and when Jenny, standing up, was measured against her,
this rivalry could have been seen by any skilled observer. It rayed and
forked about them as lightning might have done about two adjacent trees.
Emmy put down her dish.

"Fetch Pa, will you!" she said briefly. One could see who gave orders in
the kitchen.

iv

Jenny found her father in his bedroom, sitting before the dressing-table
upon which a tall candle stood in an equally tall candlestick. He was
looking intently at his reflection in the looking-glass, as one who
encounters and examines a stranger. In the glass his face looked red and
ugly, and the tossed grey hair and heavy beard were made to appear
startlingly unkempt. His mouth was open, and his eyes shaded by lowered
lids. In a rather trembling voice he addressed Jenny upon her entrance.

"Is supper ready?" he asked. "I heard you come in."

"Yes, Pa," said Jenny. "Aren't you going to brush your hair? Got a fancy
for it like that, have you? My! What a man! With his shirt unbuttoned
and his tie out. Come here! Let's have a look at you!" Although her
words were unkind, her tone was not, and as she rectified his omissions
and put her arm round him Jenny gave her father a light hug. "All right,
are you? Been a good boy?"

"Yes ... a good boy...." he feebly and waveringly responded. "What's the
noos to-night, Jenny?"

Jenny considered. It made her frown, so concentrated was her effort to
remember.

"Well, somebody's made a speech," she volunteered. "They can all do
that, can't they! And somebody's paid five hundred pounds transfer for
Jack Sutherdon ... is it Barnsley or Burnley?... And--oh, a fire at
Southwark.... Just the usual sort of news, Pa. No murders...."

"Ah, they don't have the murders they used to have," grumbled the old
man.

"That's the police, Pa." Jenny wanted to reassure him.

"I don't know how it is," he trembled, stiffening his body and rising
from the chair.

"Perhaps they hush 'em up!" That was a shock to him. He could not move
until the notion had sunk into his head. "Or perhaps people are more
careful.... Don't get leaving themselves about like they used to."

Pa Blanchard had no suggestion. Such perilous ideas, so frequently
started by Jenny for his mystification, joggled together in his brain
and made there the subject of a thousand ruminations. They tantalised
Pa's slowly revolving thoughts, and kept these moving through long hours
of silence. Such notions preserved his