connection with the club should have given him some
manners, but apparently his class cannot take them on, for, though he
knew I regarded his thanks as an insult, he looked them when he was not
speaking them, and hardly had he sat down, by my orders, than he
remembered that I was a member of the club, and jumped up. Nothing is
in worse form than whispering, yet again and again, when he thought I
was not listening, he whispered to Mrs. Hicking, "You don't feel
faint?" or "How are you now?" He was also in extravagant glee because
she ate two cakes (it takes so little to put these people in good
spirits), and when she said she felt like another being already, the
fellow's face charged me with the change. I could not but conclude,
from the way Mrs. Hicking let the baby pound her, that she was stronger
than she had pretended.

I remained longer than was necessary, because I had something to say to
William which I knew he would misunderstand, and so I put off saying
it. But when he announced that it was time for him to return to London,
at which his wife suddenly paled, so that he had to sign to her not to
break down, I delivered the message.

"William," I said, "the head waiter asked me to say that you could take
a fortnight's holiday just now. Your wages will be paid as usual."

Confound them! William had me by the hand, and his wife was in tears
before I could reach the door.

"Is it your doing again, sir?" William cried.

"William!" I said, fiercely.

"We owe everything to you," he insisted. "The port wine----"

"Because I had no room for it in my cellar."

"The money for the nurse in London----"

"Because I objected to being waited on by a man who got no sleep."

"These lodgings----"

"Because I wanted to do something for my old nurse."

"And, now, sir, a fortnight's holiday!"

"Good-by, William!" I said, in a fury.

But before I could get away, Mrs. Hicking signed to William to leave
the room, and then she kissed my hand. She said something to me. It was
about my wife. Somehow I---- What business had William to tell her
about my wife?

They are all back in Drury Lane now, and William tells me that his wife
sings at her work just as she did eight years ago. I have no interest
in this, and try to check his talk of it; but such people have no sense
of propriety, and he even speaks of the girl Jenny, who sent me lately
a gaudy pair of worsted gloves worked by her own hand. The meanest
advantage they took