s. It was said he treated his wife like dirt; that they
lived like cat and dog; that he grudged her bare living and clothing.
Jonah set his lips grimly on a hint of these rumours.

Three years ago he had planted Ada in a house of her own, and had gone
home daily to rooms choked with dirt, for with years of ease she had
grown more slovenly. Servants were a failure, for she made a friend of
them, and their families lived in luxury at her expense. And when Ada
was left alone, the meals were never ready, the house was like a
pigsty, and she sat complacently amidst the dirt, reading penny
novelettes in a gaudy dressing-jacket, or entertaining her old pals
from the factory.

These would sit through an afternoon with envy in their hearts, and
cries of wonder on their lips at the sight of some useless and costly
article, which Ada, with the instinct of the parvenu, had bought to
dazzle their eyes. For she remained on the level where she was born,
and the gaping admiration of her poorer friends was the only profit she
drew from Jonah's success. If Jonah arrived without warning, they
tumbled over one another to get out unseen by the back door, but never
forgot to carry away some memento of their visit--a tin of salmon, a
canister of tea, a piece of bacon, a bottle whose label puzzled
them--for Ada bestowed gifts like Royalty, with the invariable formula
"Oh! take it; there's plenty more where that comes from."

But the worst was her neglect of Ray, now seven years old, and the
apple of Jonah's eye. She certainly spent part of the morning in
dressing him up in his clothes, which were always new, for they were
discarded by Jonah when the creases wore off; but when this duty, which
she was afraid to neglect, was ended, she sent him out into the street
to play in the gutter. His meals were the result of hazard, starving
one day, and over-eating the next. And then, one day, some stains
which Ada had been unable to sponge out elicited a stammering tale of a
cart-wheel that had stopped three inches from the prostrate child.

This had finished Jonah, and with an oath he had told Ada to pack up,
and move into the rooms over the shop, when they could be got ready.
Ada made a scene, grumbled and sulked, but Jonah would take no more
risks. His son and his shop, he had fathered both, and they should be
brought together under his watchful eye, and Ada's parasites could
sponge elsewhere.

It had happened in time for him to have the