Mrs. Smith tossed her head.

“Fancy you remembering that for thirty-five years!” she said.

“Fancy forgetting it!” retorted Mr. Davis.

“I suppose she had a hot temper,” said the old lady.

“’Ot temper?” said the other.  “Yes.”  He leaned forward, and holding his chilled hands over the fire stood for some time deep in thought.

“I don’t know what it is,” he said at last, “but there’s a something about you that reminds me of her.  It ain’t your voice, ’cos she had a very nice voice—­when she wasn’t in a temper—­and it ain’t your face, because—­”

“Yes?” said Mrs. Smith, sharply.  “Because it don’t remind me of her.”

“And yet the other day you said you recognized me at once,” said the old lady.

“I thought I did,” said Mr. Davis.  “One thing is, I was expecting to see her, I s’pose.”

There was a long silence.

“Well, I won’t keep you,” said Mrs. Smith at last, “and it’s no good for you to keep coming here to see her.  She will never come here again.  I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you don’t look over and above respectable.  Your coat is torn, your trousers are patched in a dozen places, and your boots are half off your feet—­I don’t know what the servant must think.”

“I—­I only came to look for my wife,” said Mr. Davis, in a startled voice.  “I won’t come again.”

“That’s right,” said the old lady.  “That’ll please her, I know.  And if she should happen to ask what sort of a living you are making, what shall I tell her?”

“Tell her what you said about my clothes, ma’am,” said Mr. Davis, with his hand on the door-knob.  “She’ll understand then.  She’s known wot it is to be poor herself.  She’d got a bad temper, but she’d have cut her tongue out afore she’d ’ave thrown a poor devil’s rags in his face.  Good-afternoon.”

“Good-afternoon, Ben,” said the old woman, in a changed voice.

Mr. Davis, half-way through the door, started as though he had been shot, and, facing about, stood eyeing her in dumb bewilderment.

“If I take you back again,” repeated his wife, “are you going to behave yourself?”

“It isn’t the same voice and it isn’t the same face,” said the old woman; “but if I’d only got a broomhandle handy——­”

Mr. Davis made an odd noise in his throat.

“If you hadn’t been so down on your luck,” said his wife, blinking her eyes rapidly, “I’d have let you go.  If you hadn’t looked ’so miserable I could have stood it.  If I take you back, are you going to behave yourself?”

Mr. Davis stood gaping at her.

“If I take you back again,” repeated his wife, speaking very slowly, “are you going to behave yourself?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Davis, finding his voice at last.  “Yes, if you are.”

THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA

“What I want you to do,” said Mr. George Wright, as he leaned towards the old sailor, “is to be an uncle to me.”