“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 concerning Uncle George, his past and his future, announced his intention of going to the lawyers and seeing whether anything could be done.  He came back in a state of voiceless gloom, and spent the rest of a beautiful day indoors, smoking a pipe which had lost much of its flavour, and regarding with a critical and anxious eye the small, weedy figure of his wife as she went about her work.

The second month’s payment went into his pocket as a matter of course, but on this occasion Mrs. Gribble made no requests for new clothes or change of residence.  A little nervous cough was her sole comment.

“Got a cold?” inquired her husband, starting.

“I don’t think so,” replied his wife, and, surprised and touched at this unusual display of interest, coughed again.

“Is it your throat or your chest?” he inquired, gruffly.

Mrs. Gribble coughed again to see.  After five coughs she said she thought it was her chest.

“You’d better not go out o’ doors to-day, then,” said Mr. Gribble.  “Don’t stand about in draughts; and I’ll fetch you in a bottle of cough mixture when I go out.  What about a lay-down on the sofa?”

His wife thanked him, and, reaching the sofa, watched with half-closed eyes as he cleared the breakfast-table.  It was the first time he had done such a thing in his life, and a little honest pride in the possession of such a cough would not be denied.  Dim possibilities of its vast usefulness suddenly occurred to her.

She took the cough mixture for a week, by which time other symptoms, extremely disquieting to an ease-loving man, had manifested themselves.  Going upstairs deprived her of breath; carrying a loaded tea-tray produced a long and alarming stitch in the side.  The last time she ever filled the coal-scuttle she was discovered sitting beside it on the floor in a state of collapse.

“You’d better go and see the doctor,” said Mr. Gribble.

Mrs. Gribble went.  Years before the doctor had told her that she ought to take life easier, and she was now able to tell him she was prepared to take his advice.