d make fun
of me that have slaved for you and your children."

They were always his children when she talked of the trouble they were.
Her all too familiar oration was interrupted by the eel-like leap of the
soap. This time it described a graceful arc that landed it under the
middle of the bed--a double bed at that.

Pepperall had the gallantry to pursue it. He went head first over the
starboard quarter of the deck, leaving his feet aboard. Just as he
tagged the soap with his fingers his feet came on over after him, and he
found himself flat on his back, with his head under the bed and his feet
under the bureau.

When the thunder of his downfall had subsided he heard Serina say, "Now
that you're up you better stay up."

So he wriggled out from under and got himself aloft, rubbing his
indignant back. If Serina was no Aurora rising from the sea, her husband
was no Phoebus Apollo. His gown looked like hers, only younger. It had
a frivolous little pocket, and the slit-skirt effect on both sides; and
it was cut what is called "misses' length," disclosing two of the least
attractive shins in Carthage.

He was aching all over and he was angry, and he snarled as he stood at
the wash-stand:

"Have you finished with this water?"

"Yes," she said, muffledly, from the depths of a face-towel.

"Why don't you ever empty the bowl then?" he growled, and viciously
tilted the contents into the--must I say the awful word?--the
slop-jar--what other word is there?

The water splashed over and struck the bare feet of both icily. They
yowled and danced like Piute Indians, and glared at each other as they
danced. They glared in a nagged rage that would have turned into an ugly
quarrel if a great sorrow had not suddenly overswept them. They saw
themselves as they were and by a whim of memory they remembered what
they had been. He laughed bitterly:

"It's the first time we've danced together in a long time, eh?"

Her lower lip began to quiver and swell quite independently and she
sighed:

"Not much like the dances we used to dance. Oh dear!"

She dropped into a chair and stared, not at her husband, but at the
bridegroom of long ago he had shriveled from. She remembered those
honeymoon mornings when they had awakened like eager children and
laughed and romped and been glad of the new day. The mornings had been
precious then, for it was a tragedy to let him go to his shop, as it was
a festival to watch from the porch in the evenin