came out on the pen in chunks. When I had
spoiled the second postcard, Eliza said I was not to talk like that.

"Very well, then," I said, "why don't you have the ink-pot refilled?
I'm not made of postcards, and I hate waste."

She replied that anybody would think I was made of something to hear me
talk. I thought I had never heard a poorer retort, and told her so. I
did not stay to argue it further, as I had to be off to the city. On my
return I found the ink-pot full. "This," I thought to myself, "is very
nice of Eliza." I had a letter I wanted to write, and sat down to it.

I wrote one word, and it came out a delicate pale gray. I called Eliza
at once. I was never quieter in my manner, and it was absurd of her to
say that I needn't howl the house down.

"We will not discuss that," I replied. "Just now I sat down to write a
letter----"

"What do you want to write letters for now? You might just as well have
done them at the office."

I shrugged my shoulders in a Continental manner. "You are probably not
aware that I was writing to your own mother. She has so few pleasures.
If you do not feel rebuked now----"

"I don't think mamma will lend you any more if you do write."

"We will not enter into that. Why did you fill the ink-pot with water?"

"I didn't."

"Then who did?"

"Nobody did. I didn't think of it until tea-time, and then--well, the
tea was there."

I once read a story where a man laughed a low, mirthless laugh. The
laugh came to me quite naturally on this occasion. "Say no more," I
said. "This is contemptible. Now I forbid you to get the ink--I will
get it myself."

* * * * *

On the following night she asked me if I had bought that ink. I
replied, "No, Eliza; it has been an exceptionally busy day, and I have
not had the time."

"I thought you had forgotten it, perhaps."

"I supposed you would say that," I said. "In you it does not surprise
me."

* * * * *

A week later Eliza said that she wanted to do her accounts. "I am glad
of that," I said. "Now you will know the misery of living without ink
in the house."

"No, I sha'n't," she said, "because I always do my accounts in pencil."

"About three months ago I asked you to fill that ink-pot with ink. Why
is it not done?"

"Because you also definitely forbade me to get any ink to fill it with.
And you said you'd get it yourself. And it wasn't three month