|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 65
Mr. Wilkins, however, was a man, and would be sure to want a big
bath. Having it, Scrap calculated, would keep him busy for a long
while. Then he would unpack, and then, after his night in the train,
he would probably sleep till the evening. So would he be provided for
the whole of that day, and not be let loose on them till dinner.
Therefore Scrap came to the conclusion she would be quite safe in
the garden that day, and got up as usual after breakfast, and dawdled
as usual through her dressing, listening with a slight cocked ear to
the sounds of Mr. Wilkins's arrival, of his luggage being carried into
Lotty's room on the other side of the landing, of his educated voice as
he inquired of Lotty, first, "Do I give this fellow anything?" and
immediately afterwards, "Can I have a hot bath?"--of Lotty's voice
cheerfully assuring him that he needn't give the fellow anything
because he was the gardener, and that yes, he could have a hot bath;
and soon after this the landing was filled with the familiar noises of
wood being brought, of water being brought, of feet running, of tongues
vociferating---in fact, with the preparation of the bath.
Scrap finished dressing, and then loitered at her window, waiting
till she should here Mr. Wilkins go into the bathroom. When he was
safely there she would slip out and settle herself in her garden and
resume her inquiries into the probable meaning of her life. She was
getting on with her inquiries. She dozed much less frequently, and was
beginning to be inclined to agree that tawdry was the word to apply to
her past. Also she was afraid that her future looked black.
There--she could hear Mr. Wilkins's educated voice again.
Lotty's door had opened, and he was coming out of it asking his way to
the bathroom.
"It's where you see the crowd," Lotty's voice answered--still a
cheerful voice, Scrap was glad to notice.
His steps went along the landing, and Lotty's steps seemed to go
downstairs, and then there seemed to be a brief altercation at the
bathroom door--hardly so much an altercation as a chorus of
vociferations on one side and wordless determination, Scrap judged, to
have a bath by oneself on the other.
Mr. Wilkins knew no Italian, and the expression pericoloso left
him precisely as it found him--or would have if he had seen it, but
naturally he took no notice of the printed matter on the wall. He
firmly closed the door on the servants, resisting Domenico, who tried
to the last to press through, and locked himself in as a man should for
his bath, judicially considering, as he made his simple preparations
for getting in, the singular standard of behaviour of these foreigners
who, both male and female, apparently wished to stay with him while he
bathed. In Finland, he had heard, the female natives not only were
present on such occasions but actually washed the bath-taking traveler.
He had not heard, however, that this was true too of Italy, which
somehow seemed much nearer civilization--perhaps because one went
there, and did not go to Finland.
Impartially examining this reflection, and carefully balancing
the claims to civilization of Italy and Finland, Mr. Wilkins got into
the bath and turned off the tap. Naturally he turned off the tap. It
was what one did. But on the instructions, printed in red letters, was
a paragraph saying that the tap should not be turned off as long as
there was still fire in the stove. It should be left on--not much on,
but on--until the fire was quite out; otherwise, and here again was the
word pericoloso, the stove would blow up.
Mr. Wilkins got into the bath, turned off the tap, and the stove
blew up, exactly as the printed instructions said it would. It blew
up, fortunately, only in its inside, but it blew up with a terrific
noise, and Mr. Wilkins leapt out of the bath and rushed to the door,
and only the instinct born of years of training made him snatch up a
towel as he rushed.
Scrap, half-way across the landing on her way out of doors, heard
the explosion.
"Good heavens," she thought, remembering the instruction, "there
goes Mr. Wilkins!"
And she ran toward the head of the stairs to call the servants,
and as she ran, out ran Mr. Wilkins clutching his towel, and they ran
into each other.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|