“Of course he didn’t,” said the parlourmaid.
“Well, he looked like—By Jove, no. I remember now. He was the greengrocer.”
“On the sixteenth instant,” said the policeman—pompous ass!—“did the greengrocer—?”
“Yes, he did, if you want to know,” said the parlourmaid. She seemed disappointed and baffled, like a tigress that sees its prey being sneaked away from it. Then she brightened. “But this fellow could easily have found that out by asking round about.”
A perfectly poisonous girl.
“What’s your name?” asked the policeman.
“Well, I say, do you mind awfully if I don’t give my name, because—”
“Suit yourself. You’ll have to tell it to the magistrate.”
“Oh, no, I say, dash it!”
“I think you’d better come along.”
“But I say, really, you know, I am an old friend of the family. Why, by Jove, now I remember, there’s a photograph of me in the drawing-room. Well, I mean, that shows you!”
“If there is,” said the policeman.
“I’ve never seen it,” said the parlourmaid.
I absolutely hated this girl.
“You would have seen it if you had done your dusting more conscientiously,” I said, severely. And I meant it to sting, by Jove!