"
The evening was darkening rapidly, and the firelight flickered over the
back of the toy dogs piled up on the dresser. Jim had lit his pipe, and
the acrid and warm odour of quickly-burning tobacco overpowered the smell
of grease and the burnt skin of the baked potato, a fragment of which
remained on the plate; only the sickly flavour of drying paste was
distinguishable in the reek of the short black clay which the man held
firmly between his teeth. Esther sat by the fire, her hands crossed over
her knees, no signs of emotion on her sullen, plump face. Mrs. Saunders
stood on the other side of Esther, between her and the younger children,
now quarrelling among themselves, and her face was full of fear as she
watched her husband anxiously.
"Now, then, old woman, blurt it out!" he said. "What is it? Can it be the
girl 'as lost her sitooation--got the sack? Yes, I see that's about the
cut of it. Her beastly temper! So they couldn't put up with it in the
country any more than I could mesel'. Well, it's 'er own look-out! If she
can afford to chuck up a place like that, so much the better for 'er.
Pity, though; she might 'ave put me up to many a good thing."
"It ain't that, Jim. The girl is in trouble."
"Wot do yer say? Esther in trouble? Well, that's the best bit I've heard
this long while.
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