have among themselves and in exclusively spinster circles wilder
customs than I am aware of. But it seemed to me odd, and I could
almost have sworn (if you will not misunderstand the phrase), I
should have been strongly impelled to maintain at the time that
the words, `Now's your time, Bill', were by no means pronounced
with that upper-class intonation which, as I have already said,
had up to now characterized Miss Mowbray's conversation. In fact,
the words, `Now's your time, Bill', would have been, I fancy,
unsuitable if pronounced with that upper-class intonation.

"I was surprised, I repeat, then, at the remark. But I was still
more surprised when, looking round me in bewilderment, my hat and
umbrella in hand, I saw the lean lady with the woollen shawl
leaning upright against the door out of which I was just about to
make my exit. She was still knitting, and I supposed that this
erect posture against the door was only an eccentricity of
spinsterhood and an oblivion of my intended departure.

"I said genially, `I am so sorry to disturb you, Miss James, but I
must really be going. I have--er--' I stopped here, for the words
she had uttered in reply, though singularly brief and in tone
extremely business-like, were such as to render that arrest of my
remarks, I think, natural and excusable. I have these words also
noted down. I have not the least idea of their meaning; so I have
only been able to render them phonetically. But she said," and Mr
Shorter peered short-sightedly at his papers, "she said: `Chuck it,
fat 'ead,' and she added something that sounded like `It's a kop',
or (possibly) `a kopt'. And then the last cord, either of my sanity
or the sanity of the universe, snapped suddenly. My esteemed friend
and helper, Miss Brett, standing by the mantelpiece, said: `Put 'is