w, and to think what I was just a-sayin'
to Shoosmith, this very morning! Just in the crick of the thumb-joint,
you can't 'ardly abear yourself!' And then she told how she said to
Shoosmith frequent, where was the use of his getting impatient, and
exclaimin' the worst expressions? Because his language went beyond
a quart, and no reasonable excuse."

"Mr. Shoosmith doesn't seem a very promising sort? He's a tailor,
isn't he?"

"No; he's a messenger. He runs on errands and does odd jobs. But he
can't run--I've seen him!--he can only shamble. And his voice is
hoarse and inaudible. And he has a drawback--two drawbacks, in fact.
He is no sooner giv' coppers on a job than he drinks them."

"What's the other?"

"His susceptibility to intoxicants. His 'ed is that weak that 'most
anythink upsets him. So you see."

"Poor chap! He's handicapped in the race of life. As for his wife,
when I saw her she was suffering with acute rheumatism and bad
feeling--and, I may add, defective reasoning power. However...." The
doctor fills in blanks, adds a signature, says "There we are!" and
Mrs. Shoosmith is disposed of as an applicant to the institution, and
will no doubt reap some benefits we need not know the particulars of.
But she remains as a subject for the student of human life--also,
tea comes--also, which is interesting, Sally proceeds to make it.

Now, if the reserves this young lady had made about this visit, if
her pretence that it was a necessity arising from a charitable
organization, if the colour that was given to that pretence by her
interview with the servant Craddock--if any of these things had been
more or less than the grossest hypocrisy, would it, we ask you, have
been accepted as a matter of course that she should pull off her
gloves and sit down to make tea with a mature knowledge of how to get
the little lynch-pin out of the spirit-lamp, and of how many
spoonfuls? No; the fact is, Sally was a more frequent visitor to the
image of Buddha than she chose to admit; and as for the doctor, he
seized every legitimate opportunity of 'cello practice at Krakatoa
Villa. But G.P.'s cannot call their time their own.

"The funny part of Mrs. Shoosmith," said Sally, when the pot was full
up and the lid shut, "is that the moment she is brought into contact
with warm soapy water and scrubbing-brushes, she seems to renew her
youth. She brings large pins out of her mouth and secures her apron.
And then she scrubs. Now you may bl