too adhesive remnant
of the previous porridge. He had come to the conclusion that children
are tougher and more enduring than Dr. Holt will admit; and that a
little carelessness in matters of hygiene and sterilization does not
necessarily mean instant death.

Truly his once dainty menage was deteriorating. He had put away his fine
china, put away the linen napery, and laid the table with oil cloth. He
had even improved upon Fuji's invention of scuppers by a little
trough which ran all round the rim of the table, to catch any possible
spillage. He was horrified to observe how inevitably callers came at
the worst possible moment. Mr. and Mrs. Chow, for instance, drew up one
afternoon in their spick-and-span coupe with their intolerably spotless
only child sitting self-consciously beside them. Groups, Bunks, and
Yelpers were just then filling the garden with horrid clamour. They had
been quarrelling, and one had pushed the other two down the back steps.
Gissing, who had attempted to find a quiet moment to scald the ants out
of the ice-box, had just rushed forth and boxed them all. As he stood
there, angry and waving a steaming dishclout, two Chows appeared. The
puppies at once set upon little Sandy Chow, and had thoroughly mauled
his starched sailor suit in the driveway before two minutes were past.
Gissing could not help laughing, for he suspected that there had been a
touch of malice in the Chows coming just at that time.

He had given up his flower garden, too. It was all he could do to shove
the lawn-mower around, in the dusk, after the puppies were in bed.
Formerly he had found the purr of the twirling blades a soothing
stimulus to thought; but nowadays he could not even think consecutively.
Perhaps, he thought, the residence of the mind is in the legs, not in
the head; for when your legs are thoroughly weary you can't seem to
think.

So he had decided that he simply must have more help in the cooking and
housework. He had instructed Mrs. Spaniel to send the washing to the
steam-laundry, and spend her three days in the kitchen instead. A
huge bundle had come back from the laundry, and he had paid the driver
$15.98. With dismay he sorted the clean, neatly folded garments. Here
was the worthy Mrs. Spaniel's list, painstakingly written out in her
straggling script:--

MR. GISHING FAMILY WOSH

8 towls
6 pymjarm Mr Gishing
12 rompers
3 blowses
6 cribb sheets
1 Mr. Gishing sheat