dressed and given their breakfast and sent off to school. Then there's
shopping wot must be done, and beds wot must be made."

"I'll make ours," said his wife, decidedly. "For my own sake."

"And wot about the others?" inquired Mr. Porter.

"The others'll be made by the same party as washes the children, and
cooks their dinner for 'em, and puts 'em to bed, and cleans the 'ouse,"
was the reply.

"I'm not going to have your mother 'ere," exclaimed Mr. Porter, with
sudden heat. "Mind that!"

"I don't want her," said Mrs. Porter. "It's a job for a strong, healthy
man, not a pore old thing with swelled legs and short in the breath."

"Strong--'ealthy--man!" repeated her husband, in a dazed voice.
"Strong--'eal---- Wot are you talking about?"

Mrs. Porter beamed on him. "You," she said, sweetly.

There was a long silence, broken at last by a firework display of
expletives. Mrs. Porter, still smiling, sat unmoved.

"You may smile!" raved the indignant Mr. Porter. "You may sit there
smiling and smoking like a--like a man, but if you think that I'm going
to get the meals ready, and soil my 'ands with making beds and washing-up,
you're mistook. There's some 'usbands I know as would set about you!"

Mrs. Porter rose. "Well, I can't sit here gossiping with you all day,"
she said, entering the house.

"Wot are you going to do?" demanded her husband, following her.

"Going to see Aunt Jane and 'ave a bit o' dinner with her," was the
reply. "And after that I think I shall go to the 'pictures.' If you 'ave
bloaters for dinner be very careful with little Jemmy and the bones."

"I forbid you to leave this 'ouse!" said Mr. Porter, in a thrilling
voice. "If you do you won't find nothing done when you come home, and
all the kids dirty and starving."

"Cheerio!" said Mrs. Porter.

Arrayed in her Sunday best she left the house half an hour later. A
glance over her shoulder revealed her husband huddled up in a chair in
the dirty kitchen, gazing straight before him at the empty grate.

He made a hearty breakfast at a neighbouring coffee-shop, and, returning
home, lit the fire and sat before it, smoking. The return of the four
children from school, soon after midday, found him still wrestling with
the difficulties of the situation. His announcement that their mother
was out and that there would be no dinner was received at first in
stupefied silence. Then Jemmy, opening his mouth to its widest extent,
acted