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TEE OLD KENT ROAD
51
any creature more tailless than a coster without his cart? But the courtship had still kept up, tho Bill was growing lukewarm, very tepid, toward his humbled rival in trade.
As if to show their unconcern at his presence, Bill and Sarah turned to their nightly game of cribbage. If Harry missed the hearty slap of former welcome from Mr. Simmonds, and his own former salute of the ample cheek of the "missus," he did not
hawf 'ly vulgar," he began, in protesting accents, but the door closed quickly upon his further social dicta. "This 'ere lark tykes me cold," he confided to Sarah, "an' that's flat — it 's a shyme, that 's wot ! ' ' With this feeble protest he absorbed himself over the cribbage table. Perhaps he was not quite ready to measure swords with Harry ; perhaps he enjoyed nursing his resentment, or again, like a skilled warrior, he may have been cast
SUE AND HARRY COURT, WHILE BILL AND SARAH PLAY CRIBBAGE
show it. His sole thought seemed to be bent on summarily captivating Sue.
He may have been rough, I grant it, with guarded attempts to circumvent her girlish waist, and disregard of parental coldness. At length she fluttered softly away from him, and Bill, like an alert game warden, turned a stony stare on and quite thru the aggressive lover.
"I s'y," said Harry, rising to the occasion, " 'ow do a bit of a walk strike you, Susie ? ' '
Sue rose obediently to fetch her shawl.
Bill's stare swept around on her at this unexpected hardihood. "I 'appen to know this a-walkin' hout is
ing about for a fateful weapon ; at any rate, his actions on this rebellious occasion were surprisingly mild.
Out in the moonlight the meanness of the houses in Old Kent Road was softened to the verge of beauty. Sue and Harry felt its mellow influence. Her hand lay, with free trust, in his. In the course of time they had strolled as far as the parapets of London Bridge. Here they stood while the lovers ' moon made uneven blotches on the river.
One day was very like another in the Road, and the morrow dawned with no premonition of change. Sue had healed sundry rents in little Jenny's frock, chased Tom off to school,