“Last time we had sausages,” said the eight-year-old Muriel, “they melted in your mouth.”  Mr. Porter glowered at her.

“Instead of in the fire,” said the eldest boy, with a mournful snigger.

“If I get up to you, my lad,” said the harassed Mr. Porter, “you’ll know it!  Pity you don’t keep your sharpness for your lessons!  Wot country is Africa in?”

“Why, Africa’s a continent!” said the startled youth.

“Jes so,” said his father; “but wot I’m asking you is:  wot country is it in?”

“Asia,” said the reckless one, with a side-glance at Muriel.

“And why couldn’t you say so before?” demanded Mr. Porter, sternly.  “Now, you go to the sink and give yourself a thorough good wash.  And mind you come straight home from school.  There’s work to be done.”

He did some of it himself after the children had gone, and finished up the afternoon with a little shopping, in the course of which he twice changed his grocer and was threatened with an action for slander by his fishmonger.  He returned home with his clothes bulging, although a couple of eggs in the left-hand coat-pocket had done their best to accommodate themselves to his figure.

He went to bed at eleven o’clock, and at a quarter past, clad all too lightly for the job, sped rapidly downstairs to admit his wife.

“Some ’usbands would ’ave let you sleep on the doorstep all night,” he said, crisply.

“I know they would,” returned his wife, cheerfully.  “That’s why I married you.  I remember the first time I let you come ’ome with me, mother ses:  ’There ain’t much of ‘im, Susan,’ she ses; ’still, arf a loaf is better than—­’”

The bedroom-door slammed behind the indignant Mr. Porter, and the three lumps and a depression which had once been a bed received his quivering frame again.  With the sheet obstinately drawn over his head he turned a deaf ear to his wife’s panegyrics on striking and her heartfelt tribute to the end of a perfect day.  Even when standing on the cold floor while she remade the bed he maintained an attitude of unbending dignity, only relaxing when she smote him light-heartedly with the bolster.  In a few ill-chosen words he expressed his opinion of her mother and her deplorable methods of bringing up her daughters.

He rose early next morning, and, after getting his own breakfast, put on his cap and went out, closing the street-door with a bang that awoke the entire family and caused the somnolent Mrs. Porter to open one eye for the purpose of winking with it.  Slowly, as became a man of leisure, he strolled down to the works, and, moving from knot to knot of his colleagues, discussed the prospects of victory.  Later on, with a little natural diffidence, he drew Mr. Bert Robinson apart and asked his advice upon a situation which was growing more and more difficult.

“I’ve got my hands pretty full as it is, you know,” said Mr. Robinson, hastily.