had been bought by the eccentric and notorious landlord of
the Elk Hotel, down by the river, on a Sunday afternoon when he was--not
drunk, but more optimistic than the state of English society warrants.
He liked the picture because his public-house was so unmistakably plain
in it. He ordered a massive gold frame for it, and hung it in his
saloon-bar. His career as a patron of the arts was unfortunately cut
short by an order signed by his doctors for his incarceration in a
lunatic asylum. All Putney had been saying for years that he would end
in the asylum, and all Putney was right.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VIII

_An Invasion_

One afternoon, in December, Priam and Alice were in the sitting-room
together, and Alice was about to prepare tea. The drawn-thread cloth was
laid diagonally on the table (because Alice had seen cloths so laid on
model tea-tables in model rooms at Waring's), the strawberry jam
occupied the northern point of the compass, and the marmalade was
antarctic, while brittle cakes and spongy cakes represented the occident
and the orient respectively. Bread-and-butter stood, rightly, for the
centre of the universe. Silver ornamented the spread, and Alice's two
tea-pots (for she would never allow even Chinese tea to remain on the
leaves for more than five minutes) and Alice's water-jug with the patent
balanced lid, occupied a tray off the cloth. At some distance, but still
on the table, a kettle moaned over a spirit-lamp. Alice was cutting
bread for toast. The fire was of the right redness for toast, and a
toasting-fork lay handy. As winter advanced, Alice's teas had a tendency
to become cosier and cosier, and also more luxurious, more of a
ritualistic ceremony. And to avoid the trouble and danger of going
through a cold passage to the kitchen, she arranged matters so that the
entire operation could be performed with comfort and decency in the
sitting-room itself.

Priam was rolling cigarettes, many of them, and placing them, as he
rolled them, in order on the mantelpiece. A happy, mild couple! And a
couple, one would judge from the richness of the tea, with no immediate
need of money. Over two years, however, had passed since the catastrophe
to Cohoon's, and Cohoon's had in no way recovered therefrom. Yet money
had been regularly found for the household. The manner of its finding
was soon to assume importance in the careers of Priam and Alice. But,
ere that moment,