It was not Sam who troubled George, but Madge had truth with her when she told her suitor that he looked worried. George jerked his thumb vaguely streetwards. “It’s her again,” he explained. “I can’t think why God made landladies. I ask you, Madge, is another blanket in this weather a thing to fly into a temper about?”
“It’s cold,” said Madge. “Won’t she give you another?”
“I don’t know yet whether she’ll give me one or not. But she’s had my last word. Another blanket or I’ll flit.”
He admitted it. “I know. It takes an earthquake to shift some folks, and I reckon I’m one of them. I stay where I’m set.” And his tone implied that conservatism was an admirable virtue.
Madge did not think so. “That’s what my mother says of you,” she observed, a trifle tartly.
“It’s no lie, either,” he placidly agreed. “Seems to me,” he went on, with a look, ardent but appealing, at Madge, “that there’s only one thing will flit me from Mrs. Whitehead’s. You couldn’t give a guess at it, could you?”
“Yes, I could,” said Madge brazenly. After all, she was Anne’s daughter, and direct. Then, despite herself, she fenced coyly: “You’re leaving the town, I reckon, Mr. Chappie.”
He stood aghast at the revolutionary thought. “Nay,” he said earnestly. “I’m set here and I’ll not leave willing. There’s something to keep me where I am.”
“Your job’s not worth so much,” she said, misunderstanding wilfully.
“It’s steady, though,” he defended it, “and a growing trade. My master’s getting a lot of window-cleaning contracts all over the town. But it’s not my job that keeps me here. It’s------” He dropped his cap and fumbled for it nervously, somehow finding a sort of courage in the act, so that when he rose he faced her with a spirit which was, for him, quite debonair. “Now, you’ll not stop me, will you? I’ve come on purpose to get this off my chest and I’ve worked myself up to a point. I’m a bit slow at most things and I’m easily put off, so I’ll ask you to give my humble request a patient hearing.”
Madge looked at him acutely, and decided that his resolution was strong enough to survive something that she very much wanted to say. “I’d rather this didn’t come straight on top of a row with your landlady,” she said.