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Mr Philp's just arrived there." On recovering from his previous stroke, Mr Rogers had given orders that, if another befell him, his bed was to be fetched downstairs and laid in the great bow-window of the parlour. There Cai found him with Fancy in attendance, and 'Bias seated on a chair by the bedside. "Good-mornin'," Cai nodded, hushing his voice, and advanced towards the bed almost on tiptoe.
'Now for the next, says I. Philp's a greedy fellow: he stuck there lookin' so hard at the weighin'-scoop, wonderin' how much overplush he'd get this go, he didn' see me twitch the tailmost sack out o' the line wi' th' end o' my crutch, nor Bill pick it up casual as he came along an' toss it away into the corner.
Having reached a point which commanded a view over the blinds of Mr Philp's front window, she gave a glance into the room, and at once her arms and legs started to twitch as though in the opening movement of some barbaric war-dance. 'Bias, still inattentive, took no heed of these contortions.
"Hullo!" hailed a voice alongside, at the foot of the accommodation table; and Mr Philp's top hat, Mr Philp's deceptively jovial face, Mr Philp's body clad in mourning weeds, climbed successively into view. "There, naybours!" he announced. "I'm in the nick of time, after all, it seems, though when I heard the church clock strike twelve it sent my heart into my mouth." He stood and panted.
"A triflin' matter of business, that's all," answered Cai, who chafed under Mr Philp's inquisitiveness; but chafed, like everybody else, in vain. "Orderin' your breastplate? . . . It's well to be in good time when you're dealin' with John Peter," said Mr Philp with dreadful jocularity. "As I came along the head o' the town," he explained, "I heard that Snell's wife had passed away in the night.
Captain Cai released just then from his wrapper turned and stared at him. "I had it from the Postmistress," Mr Philp's tone was matter-of-fact, his gaze unabashed. "Bein' paralytic, Rogers did your business with the widow by letter; he keeps a type-writin' machine an' pays Tabb's girl three shillin' a-week to work it. The paper's thin, as I've had a mind to warn 'er more than once."
"'Ero!" murmured Fancy, stepping to the bedside and arranging his pillow. "You take my advice and lie quiet," counselled Mrs Bowldler. "You're not a-goin' to die this time. But there's been a shock to the system, you may make up your mind," she went on, turning to Fancy. "I'd most forgotten about the soap. That was Philp's suggestion, as I heard.
Above the sympathetic murmur of Mr Philp's audience there broke, on the instant, a gasping cry followed by a yet more terrible sound, as of one in the last agony of strangulation. All turned, as Palmerston dashing forward between the music-stands of the band and scattering them to right and left flung himself between Cai and 'Bias at their very feet. "Masters masters! I've a-swallowed the stakes!"
Cai descended to his garden, and at the foot of it found a trio of dark figures by the low fence of the edge of the cliff 'Bias and Mrs Bosenna in talk together, Dinah standing a little apart. "But that," thought he, "is only her place, as I've just been hearing." He had a just mind and was slow to suspect. Even now he could not assimilate the poison of Mr Philp's story.
"I'm rather partial to parrots, as it happens: and it's a fine bird. What's the matter with it?" "I don't know," 'Bias confessed again. "I wish somebody'd find out: but they tell me it can't be trusted with ladies." "Is that why you're takin' it for a walk? . . . Well, I'll risk five bob, if it's goin' cheap." Mr Philp's face fell.
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