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Her mind was an hotel where facts came and went like transient lodgers, without leaving their address behind, and frequently without paying for their board. It was Mrs. Ballinger's boast that she was "abreast with the Thought of the Day," and her pride that this advanced position should be expressed by the books on her drawing-room table.
Roby's hopeless unfitness to be one of them. Mrs. Leveret, on the eventful day, arrived early at Mrs. Ballinger's, her volume of Appropriate Allusions in her pocket. It always flustered Mrs. Leveret to be late at the Lunch Club: she liked to collect her thoughts and gather a hint, as the others assembled, of the turn the conversation was likely to take.
And then to have Grimm taken away from you! Lena raised the lid of an old empty case that had once contained canned corn and got out a sheet of paper and a piece of pencil. She was going to write a letter to her mamma. Tommy Ryan was going to post it for her at Ballinger's.
Mars. Tye he get his wuk done dat way, cheap. "No'em, don't believe in anything lak dat much. We use to sprinkle salt in a thin line 'roun Mars. Ballinger's house, clear 'roun, to ward off quarellin an arguein' an ol' Miss Ballinger gettin a cross spell, dat ah members, an then too; ah don believe in payin out money on a Monday. You is liable to be a spendin an a losin' all week if you do.
Ballinger's assortment of literature, and added impatiently: "Haven't you any useful books?" "Of course I have," replied Mrs. Ballinger indignantly; "I keep them in my husband's dressing-room."
Plinth had not yet given her adhesion. "I hardly see," she began, "what benefit is to be derived from investigating such peculiar customs " But Mrs. Ballinger's patience had reached the extreme limit of tension. "This at least," she returned; "that we shall not be placed again in the humiliating position of finding ourselves less up on our own subjects than Fanny Roby!" Even to Mrs.
All good fellows.... By the way, is it true that the Ballingers have moved to Lower Wyck?" "I believe so." "Dear me, what on earth possessed them?" "Some fad of Ballinger's, I fancy." "That reminds me, I must go and see Mrs. Ballinger." "You won't find them there, sir. They've moved again to her father's at Medlicott." "You don't say so. I wonder now what they've done that for."
Bollinger's menu, and by the members of the club in the emission of tentative platitudes which their guest seemed to swallow as perfunctorily as the successive courses of the luncheon. Mrs. Ballinger's reluctance to fix a topic had thrown the club into a mental disarray which increased with the return to the drawing-room, where the actual business of discussion was to open.
Ballinger got, supposing it could be put down to the damp plaster and not to some inherent defect in Mrs. Ballinger's constitution, clearly that was not Mr. Waddington's concern either. If anybody was responsible for Mrs. Ballinger's rheumatism, it was Hitchin. Mr. Waddington did not approve of Hitchin.
Tommy was seventeen, worked in the quarries, went home to Ballinger's every night, and was now waiting in the shadows under Lena's window for her to throw the letter out to him. That was the only way she could send a letter to Fredericksburg. Mrs. Maloney did not like for her to write letters.
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