er mind,
better luck next time. What you've got to do, my angel, is to find
where that lady lives--the one that sat next our friend, you know, not
the foreigner. Keep your eyes open, Polly, and be smart, and if you
tell me where she lives then I shall have something more to say to you.
It's between me and you, my beauty. You just bring me that little bit
of information and you won't regret it."

CHAPTER XIV

MR. PARISH PURSUES A BROUGHAM

Christopher Parish lived at home, that is to say, he was not a lodger
under an alien roof, like the majority of such young men in London, but
abode with his own people--his mother, his elder brother, and his
brother's wife. They had a decent little house in Kennington,
managed--rather better than such houses generally are--by Mrs. Parish
the younger, who was childless, and thus able to devote herself to what
she called "hyjene," a word constantly on her lips and on those of her
husband. Mr. Theodore Parish, aged about five-and-thirty, was an audit
clerk in the offices of a railway company, and he loved to expatiate on
the hardship of his position, which lay in the fact that he could not
hope for a higher income than one hundred and fifty pounds, and this
despite the trying and responsible nature of the duties he discharged.
After dwelling upon this injustice he would add, with peculiar gravity,
that really in certain moods one all but inclined to give a hearing to
the arguments of socialistic agitators. In other moods, and these more
frequent, Mr. Parish indulged in native optimism, tempered by anxiety
in matters of "hyjene." He was much preoccupied with the laundry
question.

"Now, are you quite sure, Ada, that this laundress is a conscientious
woman? Does she manage her establishment on modern principles? I beg
you will make a personal inspection. If ever a laundress refuses to let
you make a personal inspection be sure there is something wrong. Just
think how vital it is, this washing question. We send our clothes, our
personal garments, to a strange house to be mixed with--"

And so on at great length, Mrs. Theodore listening patiently and
approvingly. With equal solicitude did they discuss the food upon their
table.

"Theo, I shall have to change our baker."

"Ah, indeed! Why?"

"I hardly like to tell you, but perhaps I had better. I have only just
found out that a sewer-trap quite close to his shop gives out a most
offensive _affluvia_, especially in this hot w