n behind them.

"Bob," she said, factitiously calm. "You don't know what I've just
remembered!"

"Well?" said he.

"It's only grandma's birthday to-day!"

My friend Robert Brindley, the architect, struck the table with a
violent fist, making his little boys blink, and then he said quietly:

"_The_ deuce!"

I gathered that grandmamma's birthday had been forgotten and that it was
not a festival that could be neglected with impunity. Both Mr and Mrs
Brindley had evidently a humorous appreciation of crises, contretemps,
and those collisions of circumstances which are usually called
"junctures" for short. I could have imagined either of them saying to
the other: "Here's a funny thing! The house is on fire!" And then
yielding to laughter as they ran for buckets. Mrs Brindley, in
particular, laughed now; she gazed at the table-cloth and laughed almost
silently to herself; though it appeared that their joint forgetfulness
might result in temporary estrangement from a venerable ancestor who was
also, birthdays being duly observed, a continual fount of rich presents
in specie.

Robert Brindley drew a time-table from his breast-pocket with the rapid
gesture of habit. All men of business in the Five Towns seem to carry
that time-table in their breast-pockets. Then he examined his watch
carefully.

"You'll have time to dress up your progeny and catch the 2.5. It makes
the connection at Knype for Axe."

The two little boys, aged perhaps four and six, who had been ladling the
messy contents of specially deep plates on to their bibs, dropped their
spoons and began to babble about grea'-granny, and one of them insisted
several times that he must wear his new gaiters.

"Yes," said Mrs Brindley to her husband, after reflection. "And a fine
old crowd there'll be in the train--with this football match!"

"Can't be helped!... Now, you kids, hook it upstairs to nurse."

"And what about you?" asked Mrs Brindley.

"You must tell the old lady I'm kept by business."

"I told her that last year, and you know what happened."

"Well," said Brindley. "Here Loring's just come. You don't expect me to
leave him, do you? Or have you had the beautiful idea of taking him over
to Axe to pass a pleasant Saturday afternoon with your esteemed
grandmother?"

"No," said Mrs Brindley. "Hardly that!"

"Well, then?"

The boys, having first revolved on their axes, slid down from their high
chairs as though from horses.

"Look here," I said.