eon was served by Jane. In the course of the
repast the visitor observed:

"Pretty good china you have, Perkins."

"Yes," returned Thaddeus, "pretty good. I've always had a penchant
for china. My mother-in-law thinks I'm extravagant, and sometimes I
think she is right. You never saw my Capodimonte coffees, did you?"

"No," replied the Bostonian, "I never did. Where'd you get 'em?"

"London," replied Perkins, "last time I was over. You must see
them, by all means. Ah, Jane, hand Mr. Bunkerrill one of the
Capodimonte coffees."

"Wan o' the what, sorr?" asked the treasure.

Thaddeus blushed. To have his jewel go back on him at such a crisis
was excessively annoying. "One of those gold after-dinner coffee-
cups--one of the little ones, with the flowery raised figures," he
said, sharply.

"Oh!" said Jane, "wan o' thim with somebody else's initial on the
bottom?"

"Yes," said Thaddeus, fuming inwardly.

"Quite a connoisseur, that woman," laughed the visitor, as Jane went
after the dinner-cup. "She's observed the china mark. She know's N
doesn't stand for Perkins."

Thaddeus laughed weakly. "She probably thinks we got them second-
hand," he said.

"Very likely you did," retorted the Bostonian, and Jane returned
with the desired cup. "An admirable specimen," continued the
connoisseur; and them, turning the cup bottom upwards in search of
the mark, he disclosed to his own and Thaddeus's astonished gaze no
less an object than the remains of a mashed green pea, a
reminiscence of the last Perkins dinner, and conclusive evidence
that at times Jane was not as careful in the washing of her china as
she might have been.

It would be futile and useless for me to attempt to describe the
emotions of Thaddeus. I fancy a large enough number of us having
been through similar experiences to comprehend the man's
mortification and his inward wrath. It was too great to find
suitable expression at the moment. Nothing short of the absolute
destruction of the cup and the annihilation of Jane could have
adequately expressed Perkins's true feelings. He was not by nature,
however, a scene-maker--it would have been better if he had been--so
he said nothing, abiding by his rule, which seemed to be that the
man of the house would do better to reprehend the short-comings of a
delinquent servant by blowing up his wife rather than by going
direct to the core of the trouble and reading the maid a lecture. A
great many men