"And a very
easy and comfortable piece o' furniture it is, too. A bit shabby and
worn 'ere and there, but not any the worse of that. You don't need to
worry if the kids play puff-puffs on it; and it fits the shape o' the
body all the better.--Any one like to try it? Jest the very thing for a
tired gent 'ome from biz, or 'andy to pop your lady on when she faints--
as the best of ladies will! Any h'offers? Mr. de la Plastrier"--he said
"Deelay plastreer"--"a guinea? Thank you, mister. One guinea! Going a
guinea!--Now, COME on, ladies and gen'elmen! D'ye think I've got a
notion to make you a present of it? What's that? Two-and-twenty? Gawd!
Is this a tiddlin' match?"
How proud he had been of that sofa! In his first surgery he had had
nowhere to lay an aching head. Well worn? Small wonder! He would like to
know how many hundreds of times he had flung himself down on it, utterly
played out. He had been used to lie there of an evening, too, when Mary
came in to chat about household affairs, or report on her day's doings.
And he remembered another time, when he had spent the last hours of a
distracted night on it . . . and how, between sleeping and waking, he
had strained his ears for footsteps that never came.
The sofa was knocked down to his butcher for a couple of pounds, and the
crying--or decrying--of his bookcases began. He could stand no more of
it. Sweeping his papers into a bag, he guiltily unlocked the door and
stole out by way of kitchen and back gate.
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