fee, and bit through half a
roll before helping himself to fish. Then he noticed there was no hot
plate for the fish--the whole house was at sixes and sevens. He rang the
bell, but the servant girl came in with a tray holding a bowl of soup
and a hot plate.

"I've been keeping them on the stove," she simpered.

"Ah, thanks, that's very kind of you." As he swallowed the soup his
heart warmed to this fool of a girl.

"Oh, it's a good thing Doctor Erb has come," volunteered the servant
girl, who was bursting for want of sympathy.

"H'm, h'm," said Andreas.

She waited a moment, expectantly, rolling her eyes, then in full
loathing of menkind went back to the kitchen and vowed herself to
sterility.

Andreas cleared the soup bowl, and cleared the fish. As he ate, the
room slowly darkened. A faint wind sprang up and beat the tree branches
against the window. The dining-room looked over the breakwater of the
harbour, and the sea swung heavily in rolling waves. Wind crept round
the house, moaning drearily.

"We're in for a storm. That means I'm boxed up here all day. Well,
there's one blessing; it'll clear the air." He heard the servant girl
rushing importantly round the house, slamming windows. Then he caught a
glimpse of her in the garden, unpegging tea towels from the line across
the lawn. She was a worker, there was no doubt about that. He took up a
book, and wheeled his arm-chair over to the window. But it was useless.
Too dark to read; he didn't believe in straining his eyes, and gas at
ten o'clock in the morning seemed absurd. So he slipped down in the
chair, leaned his elbows on the padded arms and gave himself up, for
once, to idle dreaming. "A boy? Yes, it was bound to be a boy this
time..." "What's your family, Binzer?" "Oh, I've two girls and a boy!"
A very nice little number. Of course he was the last man to have a
favourite child, but a man needed a son. "I'm working up the business
for my son! Binzer & Son! It would mean living very tight for the next
ten years, cutting expenses as fine as possible; and then--"

A tremendous gust of wind sprang upon the house, seized it, shook it,
dropped, only to grip the more tightly. The waves swelled up along the
breakwater and were whipped with broken foam. Over the white sky flew
tattered streamers of grey cloud.

Andreas felt quite relieved to hear Doctor Erb coming down the stairs;
he got up and lit the gas.

"Mind if I smoke in here?" asked Doctor Erb, lighti