“There was a small misunderstandin’ at the close,” he answered, looking up and pausing to moisten the lead of his pencil, “owin’ to what the bills said about carriages at ten-thirty.  Which the people at Tizzer’s Green took it that carriages was to be part of the show, an’ everyone to be taken ’ome like a lord.  There was a man in the gallery, which is otherwise back seats at threppence, got up an’ said he’d a-come on that contrack, an’ no other.  Mortimer made ’im a speech, and when that wouldn’ do I copped ‘im on the back o’ the neck.”

“An’ after that, I s’pose, there was a free fight?”

“No,” said Sam; “you ’d be surprised how quiet ’e took it.  ’E was unconscious.”

She eyed him thoughtfully.

“It don’t seem like you, neither,” she said, “to strike a man so ’ard, first blow.”

“You’re right, there; it ain’t like me, an’ I felt sorry for the fella’.  But I ’ad to relieve my feelin’s.”

“What was the matter with yer feelin’s?”

“’Arrowed—­fairly ’arrowed.”  Sam shot an uneasy glance aft towards the cabin top where Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer sat amicably side by side, he conning a part while she mended a broken string on her guitar.  Beyond them, stretched on the after deck with ’Dolph for company, Arthur Miles leaned over the gunwale, apparently studying the boat’s reflection in the water.  “Between you an’ me,” Sam confessed, “I can’t get no grip on play-actors; an’ I’m sorry I ever took up with ’em.”  He consulted his accounts.  “He cleared three pound twelve an’ nine las’ night—­but ’ow?  That Mortimer carried on something ’ateful.  There was ’is wife—­you wouldn’ think it in ordinary life, but, dressed up, she goes to your ‘eart; an’ she wore, first an’ last, more dresses than you could count.  First of all she ‘it a little tambourine, an’ said she was a gipsy maid.  ‘I’m a narch little gipsy,’ she said, ‘an’ I never gets tipsy’—­”

“Why should she?”

“‘But I laugh an’ play,’ she said, ‘the whole o’ the day, such a nartless life is mine, ha, ha!’ which wasn’ none of it true, except about the drink, but you could see she only done it to make ’erself pleasant.  An’ then she told us ow’ when they rang a bell somebody was goin’ to put Mortimer to death, an’ ‘ow she stopped that by climbin’ up to the bell and ‘angin’ on to the clapper.  Then in came Mortimer an’ sang a song with ’er—­as well ’e might—­about ’is true love ‘avin’ ’is ‘eart an’ ’is ‘avin’ ‘ers, an’ everyone clappin’ an’ stampin’ an’ ancorein’ in the best of tempers.  Well, an’ what does the man do after an interval o’ five minutes, but dress hisself up in black an’ call ’er names for ‘avin’ married his uncle?  This was too much for the back seats, an’ some o’ them told ’im to go ‘ome an’ boil ’is ’ead.  But it ‘ad no effect; for he only got worse, till he ended up by blackin’ ’is face an’ smotherin’ ’er with a pillow for something quite different.  After that he got better, an’ they ended up by playin’ a thing that made everybody laugh.  I didn’ ’ear it, but took a walk outside to blow off steam, an’ only came back just as the fuss began about the carriages.  Fact is, missy, I can’t abear to see a woman used abuseful.”