rchbishop of Canterbury himself to go through such an operation in the
dining-room at Lambeth as the hard-working man of business whom he had
known in the chambers of the Adelphi.

"Does he always do that, Mrs. Burton?" Harry asked.

"Always," said Burton, "when I get the materials. One doesn't bother
oneself about a cold leg of mutton, you know, which is my usual dinner
when we are alone. The children have it hot in the middle of the day."

"Such a thing never happened to him yet, Harry," said Mrs. Burton.

"Gently with the pepper," said the editor. It was the first word he had
spoken for some time.

"Be good enough to remember that, yourself, when you are writing your
article to-night."

"No, none for me, Theodore, said Mrs. Burton.

"Cissy!"

"I have dined really. If I had remembered that you were going to display
your cookery, I would have kept some of my energy, but I forgot it."

"As a rule," said Burton, "I don't think women recognize any difference
in flavors. I believe wild duck and hashed mutton would be quite the
same to my wife if her eyes were blinded. I should not mind this, if it
were not that they are generally proud of the deficiency. They think it
grand."

"Just as men think it grand not to know one tune from another," said his
wife.

When dinner was over, Burton got up from his seat. "Harry," said he, "do
you like good wine?" Harry said that he did. Whatever women may say
about wild fowl, men never profess an indifference to good wine,
although there is a theory about the world, quite as incorrect as it is
general, that they have given up drinking it. "Indeed I do," said Harry.
"Then I'll give you a bottle of port," said Burton, and so saying he
left the room.

"I'm very glad you have come to-day," said Jones, with much gravity. "He
never gives me any of that when I'm alone with him; and he never, by any
means, brings it out for company."

"You don't mean to accuse him of drinking it alone, Tom?" said his
sister, laughing.

"I don't know when he drinks it; I only know when he doesn't."

The wine was decanted with as much care as had been given to the
concoction of the gravy, and the clearness of the dark liquid was
scrutinized with an eye that was full of anxious care. "Now, Cissy, what
do you think of that? She knows a glass of good wine when she gets it,
as well as you do Harry, in spite of her contempt for the duck."

As they sipped the old port, they sat round the dining-room f