“Right-o. I’ll be very careful. I may as well come

   up to bed myself. The editor of

    Punch

   will be a happy man to-morrow morning.”

   At intervals that night Mabel was awakened by screams of laughter. Once she enquired what the cause was.

   “Dot and Dash,” he replied, chuckling. “Too good for words! Oh, can’t you see it?”

   “Good-night again,” said Mabel.

   On the following night, when he returned from business, Mabel met him in the hall.

   “Darling,” she said, “we’ve had trouble with the sink in the scullery.”

   “What did you do about it?”

   “I sent for the plumber. He seemed such a nice, intelligent man.”

   “Have you kept him to dine with us?”

   “No. Why on earth should I? He had a glass of beer in the kitchen.”

   “People dine with me sometimes,” said Luke, “who are neither nice nor intelligent. Oh, can’t you see, Mabel, that we are all equal in the sight of Heaven?”

   “Yes,” said Mabel, “but you’re not in sight of Heaven—not by a long way. I don’t suppose you ever will be. Besides, if he had stayed, the dinner could not have gone on.”

   Luke’s ears twitched convulsively. “I can’t see that,” he said. “It is unthinkable. How can you say that?”

   “Well,” said Mabel, “one of the vegetables we are

   to eat to-night happens to be leeks. And, of course, he, being a plumber, would have stopped them.”

   Luke did not swear. He simply went up to his bedroom in silence. There he began ticking certain subjects off on his finger. Number One, Den. Number Two, Slippers. Number Three, Dot and Dash. Number Four, Plumber. She would never see. 

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