Merely Mary Ann Part 20

"Sweet, sensitive little thing!" said Baker's Terrace.

"What a good woman you must be, Mrs. Leadbatter," said the vicar, wiping his spectacles.

As part of Baker's Terrace, Lancelot witnessed the departure from his window, for he had not left after all.

Beethoven was barking his short, snappy bark the whole time at the unwonted noises and the unfamiliar footsteps; he almost extinguished the canary, though that was clamorous enough.

"Shut up, you noisy little devils!" growled Lancelot. And taking the comic opera he threw it on the dull fire. The thick sheets grew slowly blacker and blacker, as if with rage; while Lancelot thrust the five five-pound notes into an envelope addressed to the popular composer, and scribbled a tiny note:

"DEAR PETER,--If you have not torn up that cheque I shall be glad of it by return.

"Yours, "LANCELOT.

"P.S.--I send by this post a Reverie, called 'Marianne,' which is the best thing I have done, and should be glad if you could induce Brahmson to look at it."

A big, sudden blaze, like a jubilant bonfire, shot up in the grate and startled Beethoven into silence.

But the canary took it for an extra flood of suns.h.i.+ne, and trilled and demi-semi-quavered like mad.

"Sw--eet! Sweet!"

"By Jove!" said Lancelot, starting up, "Mary Ann's left her canary behind!"

Then the old whimsical look came over his face.

"I must keep it for her," he murmured. "What a responsibility! I suppose I oughtn't to let Rosie look after it any more. Let me see, what did Peter say? Canary seed biscuits . . . yes, I must be careful not to give it b.u.t.ter. . . . Curious I didn't think of her canary when I sent back all those gloves . . . but I doubt if I could have squeezed it in--my boots are only sevens after all--to say nothing of the cage."