I know?" repeated Mrs. Henshaw. "How do I know? Why, because my
husband came home almost directly Mr. Bell had gone. I wonder he didn't
meet him."

"Came home?" cried Mr. Henshaw, shrilly. "_Came home?_"

"Yes; and don't make so much noise," said Mrs. Henshaw, tartly; "he's
asleep."

The two gentlemen turned and gazed at each other in stupefaction. Mr.
Stokes was the first to recover, and, taking his dazed friend by the
arm, led him gently away. At the end of the street he took a deep
breath, and, after a slight pause to collect his scattered energies,
summed up the situation.

[Illustration: Taking his dazed friend by the arm 025]

"She's twigged it all along," he said, with conviction. "You'll have to
come home with me tonight, and to-morrow the best thing you can do _is_
to make a clean breast of it. It was a silly game, and, if you remember,
I was against it from the first."

MIXED RELATIONS

THE brig _Elizabeth Barstow_ came up the river as though in a hurry
to taste again the joys of the Metropolis. The skipper, leaning on
the wheel, was in the midst of a hot discussion with the mate, who was
placing before him the hygienic, economical, and moral advantages of
total abstinence in language of great strength but little variety.

"Teetotallers eat more," said the skipper, finally.

The mate choked, and his eye sought the galley. "Eat more?" he
spluttered. "Yesterday the meat was like brick-bats; to-day it tasted
like a bit o' dirty sponge. I've lived on biscuits this trip; and the
only tater I ate I'm going to see a doctor about direckly I get ashore.
It's a sin and a shame to spoil good food the way 'e does."

"The moment I can ship another cook he goes," said the skipper. "He
seems busy, judging by the noise."

"I'm making him clean up everything, ready for the next," explained
the mate, grimly. "And he 'ad the cheek to tell me he's
improving--improving!"

"He'll go as soon as I get another," repeated the skipper, stooping and
peering ahead. "I don't like being poisoned any more than you do. He
told me he could cook when I shipped him; said his sister had taught
him."

The mate grunted and, walking away, relieved his mind by putting his
head in at the galley and bidding the cook hold up each separate
utensil for his inspection. A hole in the frying-pan the cook modestly
attributed to elbow-grease.

The river narrowed, and the brig, picking her way daintily through the
traffic, sought her o