come in a black coat,
Mr. Coombes thought.

"Because," began Mr. Coombes, "it don't suit me. I'm a business man. I
'ave to study my connection. Rational 'njoyment--"

"His connection!" said Mrs. Coombes scornfully. "That's what he's always
a-saying. We got to do this, and we got to do that--"

"If you don't mean to study my connection," said Mr. Coombes, "what did
you marry me for?"

"I wonder," said Jennie, and turned back to the piano.

"I never saw such a man as you," said Mrs. Coombes.

"You've altered all round since we were married. Before--"

Then Jennie began at the turn, turn, turn again.

"Look here!" said Mr. Coombes, driven at last to revolt, standing up and
raising his voice. "I tell you I won't have that." The frock-coat heaved
with his indignation.

"No vi'lence, now," said the long young man in drab, sitting up.

"Who the juice are you?" said Mr. Coombes fiercely.

Whereupon they all began talking at once. The new guest said he was
Jennie's "intended," and meant to protect her, and Mr. Coombes said he was
welcome to do so anywhere but in his (Mr. Coombes') house; and Mrs.
Coombes said he ought to be ashamed of insulting his guests, and (as I
have already mentioned) that he was getting a regular little grub; and the
end was, that Mr. Coombes ordered his visitors out of the house, and they
wouldn't go, and so he said he would go himself. With his face burning and
tears of excitement in his eyes, he went into the passage, and as he
struggled with his overcoat--his frock-coat sleeves got concertinaed up
his arm--and gave a brush at his silk hat, Jennie began again at the
piano, and strummed him insultingly out of the house. Turn, turn, turn. He
slammed the shop door so that the house quivered. That, briefly, was the
immediate making of his mood. You will perhaps begin to understand his
disgust with existence.

As he walked along the muddy path under the firs,--it was late October,
and the ditches and heaps of fir needles were gorgeous with clumps of
fungi,--he recapitulated the melancholy history of his marriage. It was
brief and commonplace enough. He now perceived with sufficient clearness
that his wife had married him out of a natural curiosity and in order to
escape from her worrying, laborious, and uncertain life in the workroom;
and, like the majority of her class, she was far too stupid to realise
that it was her duty to co-operate with him in his business. She was
greedy of enjoyment, l