er before 'e knew it."

"Where did you meet this person?" demanded Mrs. Stiffson of her
husband, who, now that the coffee was cooling, began to feel chilly,
and was busily engaged in trying to extract the moisture from his
garments.

"Where did you meet her?" repeated his wife.

"In--in the bath-room," responded Mr. Stiffson weakly.

Mrs. Stiffson gasped and stood speechless with amazement.

"I heard a splashing," broke in Cissie Boye, "and I peeped in,--I only
just peeped in, really and really."

"An' then we 'ad a little friendly chat in the 'all," explained
Bindle, "an' after breakfast we was goin' to talk things over, an' see
'ow we could manage so that you didn't know."

"Your bath-room!" roared Mrs. Stiffson at length, the true horror of
the situation at last seeming to dawn upon her. "My husband in your
bath-room! Jabez!" she turned on Mr. Stiffson once more like a raging
fury. "You heard! were you in this creature's bath-room?"

Mr. Stiffson paused in the process of endeavouring to extract coffee
from his exterior.

"Er--er----" he began.

"Answer me!" shouted Mrs. Stiffson. "Were you or were you not in this
person's bath-room?"

"Yes--er--but----" began Mr. Stiffson.

Mrs. Stiffson cast a frenzied glance round the room. Action had
become necessary, violence imperative. Her roving eye lighted on the
bowl full of half-cold porridge that Mrs. Sedge had just brought in.
She seized it and, with a swift inverting movement, crashed it down
upon her husband's head.

With the scream of a wounded animal, Mr. Stiffson half rose, then sank
back again in his chair, his hands clutching convulsively at the basin
fixed firmly upon his head by the suction of its contents. From
beneath the rim the porridge gathered in large pendulous drops, and
slowly lowered themselves upon various portions of Mr. Stiffson's
person, leaving a thin filmy thread behind, as if reluctant to cut off
all communication with the basin.

Bindle and Cissie Boye went to the victim's assistance, and Bindle
removed the basin. It parted from Mr. Stiffson's head with a juicy sob
of reluctance. Whilst his rescuers were occupied in their samaritan
efforts, Mrs. Stiffson was engaged in describing her husband's
character.

Beginning with a request for someone to end his poisonous existence,
she proceeded to explain his place, or rather lack of place, in the
universe. She traced the coarseness of his associates to the vileness
of his ancestors