It would have fared ill with Mrs. Sandys now, had her standoffishness to her neighbors been repaid in the same coin, but they were full of sympathy, especially Shovel¹'s old girl, from whom she had often drawn² back offensively on the stair, but who nevertheless waddled³ up several times a day with savory⁴ messes, explaining, when Mrs. Sandys sniffed⁵, that it was not the tapiocar but merely the cup that smelt⁷ of gin. When Tommy returned the cups she noticed not only that they were suspiciously clean, but that minute particles of the mess were adhering to his nose and chin (perched there like shipwrecked mariners⁸ on a rock, just out of reach of the devouring⁹ element), and after this discovery she brought two cupfuls at a time. She was an Irish, woman who could have led the House of Commons, and in walking she seldom raised her carpet shoes from the ground, perhaps because of her weight, for she had an expansive figure that bulged¹⁰ in all directions, and there were always bits of her here and there that she had forgotten to lace. Round the corner was a delightful¹¹ eating-house, through whose window you were allowed to gaze at the great sweating dumplings, and Tommy thought Shovel's mother was rather like a dumpling that had not been a complete success. If he ever knew her name he forgot it. Shovel, who probably had another name also, called her his old girl or his old woman or his old lady, and it was a sight to see her chasing him across the street when she was in liquor, and boastful was Shovel of the way she could lay on, and he was partial to her too, and once when she was giving it to him pretty strong with the

分享到：