had dragged from
me the fact that our hot-water tap had also struck. The milk cans
clattered. Smith chattered. So did my teeth.

When I got home that night our house seemed to be more handsomely
garnished with icicles than any other house I had seen that day.

"Keep the home fires burning!" I said to my wife on entering. "If need
be, burn the banisters and the bills and my boot-trees and everything
else beginning with a 'b.' Keep us thawed and unburst, or Fitz-Jones
will feel he has scored a moral victory; he will strut cross-gartered,
with yellow stockings, for the rest of his days."

"I don't know what you are talking about," said Evangeline, "but
Christabel and I" (Christabel is our general-in-command) "have been
cosseting those pipes all day. Been giving them glasses of hot water
and dressing them up in all our clothes. The bath-pipe is wearing my
new furs and your pyjamas, and I've put your golf stockings on the
geyser-pipe. I expect they'll all blow up. Come and look at the
hot-water cistern."

The cistern looked dressy in Evangeline's fur coat. I added my silk
hat to the geyser's cosy costume and a pair of boots on the bath-taps.
But I was told not to be silly, so took them off again.

I suggested that the geyser should go to a fancy-dress ball as "The
Winter of our Discontent," but was again told not to be silly.

Two days elapsed. The frost held. Then something happened.
Fitz-Jones's lady-help came round at 7.30 A.M. to borrow a drop of
water, as they were frozen up.

We lent them several drops, and I breathed again, and continued to
breathe, with snorts of derision.

Three days later the thaw came.

As I passed Fitz-Jones's house I was grieved to hear a splashing
sound. A cascade of water was spouting from his bathroom window.
Fitz-Jones himself was running round and round the house like a
madman, flourishing a water-key and trying to find the tap to the
main.

I begged him to be calm, to control himself for his wife's sake, for
all our sakes. I was most graceful and sympathetic about it.

But with the thaw Fitz-Jones had frozen again.

* * * * *

"Civil Servant requires house."--_Local Paper_.

On the other hand, many houses just now require a civil servant.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Lady_. "YOU COME HERE BEGGING AND SAY YOU ARE NOT
EXPECTED TO DO ANY MORE WORK. I NEVER HEARD OF SUCH A THING."

_Tramp_. "THEN I'VE BEEN