to
make conversation as rapidly and in as large quantities as possible. In
a brief space of time he got round to _Home and Beauty_.

'Do you know it?' he demanded.

'No,' said Aunt Annie. 'I never heard of it. But I dare say it's a very
good paper.'

Mrs. Knight rang the bell.

'What do you want, sister?' Aunt Annie inquired.

'I'm going to send Sarah out for a copy of _Home and Beauty_,' said Mrs.
Knight, with the air of one who has determined to indulge a wild whim
for once in a way. 'Let's see what it's like.'

'Don't forget the name, Sarah--_Home and Beauty_!' Aunt Annie enjoined
the girl when Mrs. Knight had given the order.

'Not me, mum,' said Sarah. 'I know it. It's a beautiful paper. I often
buys it myself. But it's like as if what must be--I lighted the kitchen
fire with this week's this very morning, paper pattern and all.'

'That will do, thank you, Sarah,' said Aunt Annie crushingly.

CHAPTER XIII

A LION IN HIS LAIR

The respectable portion of the male sex in England may be divided into
two classes, according to its method and manner of complete immersion in
water. One class, the more clashing, dashes into a cold tub every
morning. Another, the more cleanly, sedately takes a warm bath every
Saturday night. There can be no doubt that the former class lends tone
and distinction to the country, but the latter is the nation's backbone.
Henry belonged to the Saturday-nighters, to the section which calls a
bath a bath, not a tub, and which contrives to approach godliness
without having to boast of it on frosty mornings.

Henry performed the weekly rite in a zinc receptacle exactly circular,
in his bedroom, because the house in Dawes Road had been built just
before the craze for dashing had spread to such an extent among the
lower middle-classes that no builder dared build a tenement without
providing for it specially; in brutal terms, the house in Dawes Road had
no bathroom. The preparations for Henry's immersion were always complex
and thorough. Early in the evening Sarah began by putting two kettles
and the largest saucepan to boil on the range. Then she took an old
blanket and spread it out upon the master's bedroom floor, and drew the
bathing-machine from beneath the bed and coaxed it, with considerable
clangour, to the mathematical centre of the blanket. Then she filled
ewers with cold water and arranged them round the machine. Then Aunt
Annie went upstairs to see that the old blanket