"What the Devil's the row about?"
Perhaps my nerves were going, or possably it was no luncheon and
probably no dinner. But I said, just as if he had been an ordinary
person: "Go on and write and get through. I can't stew on these steps all day."
"I thought you were an amiable Child."
"I'm not amiable and I'm not a Child."
"Don't spoil your pretty face with frowns."
"It's MY face. And you can't see it anyhow," I replied, venting in
femanine fashion, my anger at Jane on the nearest object.
"Look here," he said, through the door, "you've been my good Angel. I'm
doing more work than I've done in two months, although it was a dirty,
low-down way to make me do it. You're not going back on me now, are
you?"
Well, I was mollafied, as who would not be? So I said: "Well?"
"What did Patten do with my clothes?"
"He took them with him." He was silent, except for a muttered word.
"You might throw those Keys back again," he said. "Let me know first,
however. You're the most acurate Thrower I've ever seen."
So I through them through the window and I beleive hit the ink bottle.
But no matter. And he tried them, but none availed.
So he gave up, and went back to Work, having saved enough ink to finish
with. But a few minutes later he called to me again, and I moved to the
Doorstep, where I sat listening, while aparently admiring the sea. He
explained that having been thus forced, he had almost finished the last
Act, and it was a corker. And he said if he had his clothes and some
money, and a key to get out, he'd go right back to Town with it and
put it in rehearsle. And at the same time he would give the Pattens
something to worry about over night. Because, play or no play, it was a
Rotten thing to lock a man in a bath-house and take his clothes away.
"But of course I can't get my clothes," he said. "They'll take cussed
good care of that. And there's the Key too. We're up against it, Little
Sister."
Although excited by his calling me thus, I retained my faculties, and
said: "I have a suit of Clothes you can have."
"Thanks awfully," he said. "But from the slight acquaintance we have
had, I don't beleive they would fit me."