Donkey Boy Read Online Free Page A

dear, I don’t want to hurry you, but Dickie will want his meal. You know the new address, do you? Number eleven Hillside Road. Let me know how you get on, won’t you, and don’t leave it so long next time.”
    “Any news of Theodora?” asked Hugh.
    “I haven’t heard for quite six months, Hughie. I think she is still in Greece.”
    Richard was waiting, with his own bowl and flannel (which hehad decided to burn afterwards) in the kitchen. The smell of carbolic had turned him faint, his interior already being in a state of interior bubbling due to lack of food, and incipient exhaustion. Would they never say goodbye to one another? Must they gossip their heads off on his threshold, like any other occupant of Comfort Road? Had they no idea of good form?
    At last the door was shut, and Richard’s feelings could be vented. Hetty tried not to show her tears as, standing in the parlour, while Richard wiped all possible places which Hughie might have touched with his person, she endured complaints about what, to her, had been a happy chance visitation. Her husband’s attitude was inexplicable to her: a fuss over nothing at all.
    “I gave you every possible hint that I did not w r ant your brother in the house, did I not, repeatedly? And the moment my back is turned you flout my authority in my own house, and without a thought of possible consequences! If you care nothing for me, at least you should think of your little donkey boy, who is being spoiled by your indulgence to his every whim! Oh, I can see it happening! I am not deceived! Well, let me tell you this, once and for all! I will seek protection in a way you will not like if your brother Hugh comes here again! It is my duty to protect innocent life!”
    Hetty stared at Richard in puzzlement, and fear. She knew he was exacting, and was easily upset, but she had not seen him in such a state before. What could be the matter with him? Was he ill, or sickening for some illness? Just because her brother had sat in the “Sportsman”, the armchair in green Russian leather Mamma had given him for a Christmas present when they first came to Comfort House, he was working himself up into a rage.
    “Do you hear me?” cried Richard, flinging the cloth into the pail of disinfectant. “Either you obey my behests honourably, or you leave my house! Yes, it has come to that! Do you hear what I am saying?”
    His voice was thin and high with agitation. He was breathing fast. His face was pale and strained. What could have come over him? The child stood between them, looking up first at one face, then the other. His eyes were dull, almost mournful. “No, no,” he muttered, and began to cry.
    “Send the boy out of the room, please! I have something to say to you! You have only yourself to blame for what you are going to hear!”
    Hetty took Phillip into the kitchen. The fireguard was up and fastened to its hooks. She lifted the edges of the tablecloth and laid them over the table. She hid the poker on the rack. She shut the cupboard doors. She locked the scullery door. What else could he touch, upset, break, and so make Dickie——? Perhaps he was hungry. She gave him a crust of bread, hastily spread with beef dripping. “Now be a good boy, Sonny, stop crying dear, and for goodness gracious’ sake don’t do anything to annoy your father. Mummy won’t be gone long, play with your golliwog, there’s a dear little son.” She left him sitting on the floor, the safest place, thumb in mouth, and clutching with his other hand a fragment of silk, part of an old petticoat of hers. To Hetty this was most pathetic: for she had not been able to feed him at her breast, and from an early time the piece of silk, called Hanky, had been the substitute.
    “You may consider that I am being unreasonable, and altogether guilty of exceptionable conduct,” began Richard, in a determinedly quiet voice, when she had returned to the front room. “So perhaps the time has come to tell you a certain