his wife pleasantly.

For fifteen years they had agreed about this.

They ate, in the indecent silence of first savouring food. A delicate
crunching of crust, an odour of baked-potato shells, the slip and touch
of the silver.

"Num, num, nummy-num!" sang the child Monona loudly, and was hushed by
both parents in simultaneous exclamation which rivalled this lyric
outburst. They were alone at table. Di, daughter of a wife early lost to
Mr. Deacon, was not there. Di was hardly ever there. She was at that
age. That age, in Warbleton.

A clock struck the half hour.

"It's curious," Mr. Deacon observed, "how that clock loses. It must be
fully quarter to." He consulted his watch. "It is quarter to!" he
exclaimed with satisfaction. "I'm pretty good at guessing time."

"I've noticed that!" cried his Ina.

"Last night, it was only twenty-three to, when the half hour struck," he
reminded her.

"Twenty-one, I thought." She was tentative, regarded him with arched
eyebrows, mastication suspended.

This point was never to be settled. The colloquy was interrupted by the
child Monona, whining for her toast. And the doorbell rang.

"Dear me!" said Mr. Deacon. "What can anybody be thinking of to call
just at meal-time?"

He trod the hall, flung open the street door. Mrs. Deacon listened.
Lulu, coming in with the toast, was warned to silence by an uplifted
finger. She deposited the toast, tiptoed to her chair. A withered baked
potato and cold creamed salmon were on her plate. The child Monona ate
with shocking appreciation. Nothing could be made of the voices in the
hall. But Mrs. Bett's door was heard softly to unlatch. She, too, was
listening.

A ripple of excitement was caused in the dining-room when Mr. Deacon was
divined to usher some one to the parlour. Mr. Deacon would speak with
this visitor in a few moments, and now returned to his table. It was
notable how slight a thing would give him a sense of self-importance.
Now he felt himself a man of affairs, could not even have a quiet supper
with his family without the outside world demanding him. He waved his
hand to indicate it was nothing which they would know anything about,
resumed his seat, served himself to a second spoon of salmon and
remarked, "More roast duck, anybody?" in a loud voice and with a slow
wink at his wife. That lady at first looked blank, as she always did in
the presence of any humour couched with the least indirection, and then
drew back her chi