or years!"

"Oh, do talk sense!" she said. "What do you mean?"

"Sense!" I said. "You ask me to talk sense, when I find my own hat
standing on the floor in the hall, and used as a--a receptacle for
walnuts!"

She smiled. "I can explain all that," she said.

"I've no doubt you can. I'm sick to death of explanations. I give ten
or eleven shillings for a hat, and find it ruined. I know those
explanations. You told the girl to buy the walnuts, and she had got
nothing else to put them in, and the hat was handy; but if you think I
take that as an excuse, you make a mistake."

"I wasn't going to say that at all."

"Or else you'll tell me that you can paste in a piece of white paper,
so that the stains on the lining won't show. Explanations, indeed!"

"And I wasn't going to say that, either."

"I don't care what you were going to say. I won't hear it. There's no
explanation possible. For once I mean to take a strong line. You see
that hat? I shall never wear it again!"

"I know that."

"No one shall wear it! I don't care for the expense! If you choose to
let that servant-girl ruin my hat, then that hat shall be ruined, and
no mistake about it!"

I picked the hat up, and gave it one sound, savage kick. My foot went
through it, and the walnuts flew all over the room. At the same moment
I heard from the drawing-room a faint tink-tink-tink on the piano.

[Illustration: "_I picked the hat up, and gave it one sound, savage
kick._"]

"Yes," said Eliza. "That's the piano-tuner. He came at the same time as
the walnut-man, and bought those walnuts. And he put them in his hat.
_His_ hat, mind you, not _your_ hat. Your hat's hanging up in the
usual place. You might have seen it if you'd looked. Only you're----"

"Eliza," I said, "you need say no more. If that is so, the servant-girl
is much less to blame than I had supposed. I have to go out now, but
perhaps you'd drop into the drawing-room and explain to the tuner that
there's been some slight misunderstanding with his hat. And, I say, a
glass of beer and two shillings is as much as you need offer."

MY FORTUNE

The girl had just removed the supper things. We have supper rather
early, because I like a long evening. "Now, Eliza," I said, "you take
your work,--your sewing, or whatever it may be,--and I will take my
work. Yes, I've brought it with me, and it's to be paid as overtime. I
daresay it mayn't seem much to you,--a lot of trouble, and only a few
shilling