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You have all doubtless seen a balloon awaiting the kindly offices of the gas-man that's me. But it will soon be remedied. Adieu for the present." He left us, with the conductor in the lead and the grinning darky at his heels.
He held out the key. "I must let them out." "Wait a minute," said Kathleen. "I have no desire to see that Eliza Thick again, nor that odious curate not even the enterprising gas-man!" For the space of fifteen thoughts or so there was silence. Kathleen sat at one end of the big couch, the firelight shimmering round her in a softening glow. Blair stood painfully at the other side of the hearth.
"Oh, I'm so glad you're going to read your notes to Mr. Blair," she said, mischievously. "They are so fascinating, and there's such a jolly lot of them." "Perhaps Mr. Kent's eyes are tired?" said Blair, hastily. "Not a bit, not a bit!" said Mr. Kent. "I don't often get such a good listener. By the way, what happened to that nice young curate? I hope the gas-man didn't injure him?"
Thank goodness Blair and Carter are both coming; they'll cut each other's throats, and perhaps the stuffed eggs will win after all. As for that gas-man, he won't get into this house unless it's over my dead body!" It was a feverish and excited Eliza that Kathleen found in the kitchen when she tripped downstairs after the soup course.
The wretched American was non-plussed. He had a shrewd suspicion that matters were moving rapidly downstairs yet he did not see any way of leaving the dining-room to investigate for himself. He had hardly heard what was said. "Why ah to tell you the truth, Mr. Kent, I read very little fiction nowadays. I'm rather worried about that gas-man downstairs.
It is exempt from the base tyranny of the plumber, the paper-hanger, and the gas-man. It is not immovably bound to one dull spot of earth by the chains of a cellar and a system of water-pipes. It has a noble freedom of locomotion. It follows the wishes of its inhabitants, and goes with them, a travelling home, as the spirit moves them to explore the wilderness.
Then you could come to tea in my rooms afterward, and I'll ask the other fellows in to meet you." "The parson and the policeman and the gas-man, and and Eliza Thick?" "Yes. They're all splendid chaps, I know you'll like them." "Well," she murmured, "I dare say Eliza Thick would be all right in his proper costume. I shall never forget his nest-building genius!
For a moment he hesitated in the cross-lights and confusion about him, failing to recognize in their new costumes his old acquaintances of the company; but he saw Kripps, the stage-manager, in the centre of the stage, perspiring and in his shirt-sleeves as always, wildly waving an arm to some one in the flies, and beckoning with the other to the gas-man in the front entrance.
If it costs a man fifty pounds a year more to live in London than in the country, he is obviously no better off by the extra fifty pounds he earns in London. He is not earning fifty pounds for himself but fifty pounds for the landlord, the rate-collector, the gas-man, the restaurant proprietor, the omnibus and railway companies.
His was the cheap distinction of unsuitable clothes. "Ha! Miss Ferriby, glad to see you," he said as he entered, holding out a hand which had the usual outward signs of industrial honesty. Joan shook the hand frankly, and its possessor passed on. "Is that the gas-man?" inquired Major White, gravely.
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