"You'd find it hard to get another place at your age," said his wife;     "especially if they wouldn't give you a good character." 

     "Place!"  said the other, staring.  "Place! I tell you I've done with work. For a man o' my means to go on working for thirty-five bob a week is ridiculous." 

     "But suppose anything happened to me," said his wife, in a troubled voice. 

     "That's not very likely," said Mr. Gribble. 

     "You're tough enough. And if it did your money would come to me." 

     Mrs. Gribble shook her head. 

     "WHAT?" roared her husband, jumping up. 

     "I've only got it for life, Henry, as I told you," said Mrs. Gribble, in alarm.  "I thought you knew it would stop when I died." 

     "And what's to become of me if anything happens to you, then?"  demanded the dismayed Mr. Gribble.  "What am I to do?" 

     Mrs. Gribble put her handkerchief to her eyes. 

     "And don't start weakening your constitution by crying," shouted the incensed husband. 

     "What are you mumbling?" 

     "I sa—sa—said, let's hope—you'll go first," sobbed his wife.  "Then it will be all right." 

     Mr. Gribble opened his mouth, and then, realizing the inadequacy of the English language for moments of stress, closed it again. He broke his silence at last in favour of Uncle George. 

     "Mind you," he said, concluding a peroration which his wife listened to with her fingers in her ears—"mind you, I reckon I've been absolutely done by you and your precious Uncle George. I've given up a good situation, and now, any time you fancy to go off the hooks, I'm to be turned into the street." 

     "I'll try and live, for your sake, Henry," said his wife. 

     "Think of my worry every time you are ill," pursued the indignant Mr. Gribble. 

     Mrs. Gribble sighed, and her husband, after a few further remarks     

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