"
"I don't care, bring it!"
The mention of the arrivals sent the Admiral up to a white heat
again.
"But, my--"
"Bring it!"
It was brought. The Admiral had two helpings, and then a glass of
grog.
"Go."
Mrs. Buzza withdrew. Left to himself, the Admiral tossed, and
turned, and fumed, and swore, lay still for a while, and then
repeated the process backwards. After a time the bed-clothes began
to prick him, and the heat to become a positive torture. He leapt
out, and tore at the bell-rope, until it came away in his hand--just
as his wife reappeared.
"Will you kindly inform me what the devil's wrong with this bed?
Who made it?"
"Selina, dear."
"Then will you kindly give Selina a month's notice on the spot?
Do you hear? On the spot--What's that?"
The Admiral rushed to the window and pulled up the blind. He was
just in time to see a close carriage and pair dash past and pull up
at "The Bower."
A moment afterwards, Miss Limpenny, from the first-storey window of
No. 1, saw the carriage door open, and a tall gentleman emerge.
The tall gentleman was followed by a lady, whom even at that distance
Miss Limpenny could see to possess a remarkably graceful figure.
A small youth in livery sprang down from beside the coachman and
helped to lower the boxes, whilst the new arrivals passed into the
house where the charwoman, Mrs.
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