What with screaming, fainting, crying, and blowing me up (as if _I_ was to blame!), she kept me by that sofa of hers the best part of an hour--kept me there, in short, till Mr.James Smith himself came back.

I leave you to judge if that mended matters.

He found me mopping the poor woman's temples with scent and water; and he would have pitched me out of the window, as sure as I sit here, if I had not met him and staggered him at once with the charge of murder against his wife.

That stopped him when he was in full cry, I can promise you.

'Go and wait in the next room,' says he, 'and I'll come in and speak to you directly.'" "And did you go ?" I asked.
"Of course I did," said Mr.Dark.