I thought he had, and added that he seemed greatly attached to them.
„You think he would be upset“, she queried, „if I gave a man a sovereign to take them away and bury them?“
I answered that I thought he would never smile again.
An idea struck her. She said:
„Do you mind keeping them for him? Let me send them round to you“.
„Madam“, I replied, „for myself I like the smell of cheese, and the journey the other day with them from Liverpool I shall ever look back upon as a happy ending to a pleasant holiday. But, in this world, we must consider others. The lady under whose roof I have the honour of residing is a widow, and, for all I know, possibly an orphan too. She has a strong, I may say an eloquent, objection to being what she terms ’put upon’. The presence of your husband’s cheeses in her house she would, I instinctively feel, regard as a ’put upon’; and it shall never be said that I put upon the widow and the orphan“.
„Very well, then“, said my friend’s wife, rising, „all I have to say is, that I shall take the children and go to an hotel until those cheeses are eaten. I decline to live any longer in the same house with them.“
She kept her word, leaving the place in charge of the charwoman, who, when asked if she could stand the smell, replied, „What smell?“ and who, when taken close to the cheeses and told to sniff hard, said she could detect a faint
Strona:Jerome K. Jerome - Trzej ludzie w jednej łodzi.djvu/60
Ta strona została uwierzytelniona.