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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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988 catamaran!’ The last-mentioned tribute to the charms of Mrs Sliderskew being uttered in a whisper, that lady assented to the general proposition by a harsh growl, which was accompanied by a ring at the street-door. ‘There’s the bell,’ said Arthur. ‘Ay, ay; I know that,’ rejoined Peg. ‘Then why don’t you go?’ bawled Arthur. ‘Go where?’ retorted Peg. ‘I ain’t doing any harm here, am I?’ Arthur Gride in reply repeated the word ‘bell’ as loud as he could roar; and, his meaning being rendered further intelligible to Mrs Sliderskew’s dull sense of hearing by pantomime expressive of ringing at a street-door, Peg hobbled out, after sharply demanding why he hadn’t said there was a ring before, instead of talking about all manner of things that had nothing to do with it, and keeping her half-pint of beer waiting on the steps. ‘There’s a change come over you, Mrs Peg,’ said Arthur, following her out with his eyes. ‘What it means I don’t quite know; but, if it lasts, we shan’t agree together long I see. You are turning crazy, I think. If you are, you must take yourself off, Mrs Peg--or be taken off. All’s one to me.’ Turning over the leaves of his book as he muttered this, he soon lighted upon something which attracted his attention, and forgot Peg Sliderskew and everything else in the engrossing interest of its pages. The room had no other light than that which it derived from a dim and dirt-clogged lamp, whose lazy wick, being still further obscured by a dark shade, cast its feeble rays over a very little space, and left all beyond in heavy shadow. This lamp the money- lender had drawn so close to him, that there was only room |
