’But you must eat and drink, Frank.  And as to Jemima and the cook, it is really extraordinary the amount which they consume.’

’But the tendency is for meals to become much too elaborate.  Why that second vegetable?’

’There now!  I knew that you were going to say something against that poor vegetable.  It costs so little.’

’On an average, I have no doubt that it costs threepence a day.  Come now, confess that it does.  Do you know what threepence a day comes to in a year?  There is no use in having an accountant for a husband, if you can’t get at figures easily.  It is four pounds eleven shillings and threepence.’

‘It does not seem very much.’

’But for that money, and less, one could become a member of the London Library, with the right to take out fifteen books at a time, and all the world’s literature to draw from.  Now just picture it:  on one side, all the books in the world, all the words of the wise, and great, and witty; on the other side, a lot of cauliflowers and vegetable-marrows and French beans.  Which is the better bargain?’

‘Good gracious, we shall never have a second vegetable again!’

‘And pudding?’

‘My dear, you always eat the pudding.’

’I know I do.  It seems an obvious thing to do when the pudding is there in front of me.  But if it were not there, I should neither eat it nor miss it, and I know that you care nothing about it.  There would be another five or six pounds a year.’

’We’ll have a compromise, dear.  Second vegetable one day, pudding the next.’

‘Very good.’

’I notice that it is always after you have had a substantial meal that you discuss economy in food.  I wonder if you will feel the same when you come back starving from the City to-morrow?  Now, sir, any other economy?’

’I don’t think money causes happiness.  But debt causes unhappiness.  And so we must cut down every expense until we have a reserve fund to meet any unexpected call.  If you see any way in which I could save, or any money I spend which you think is unjustifiable, I do wish that you would tell me.  I got into careless ways in my bachelor days.’

‘That red golfing-coat.’

‘I know.  It was idiotic of me.’

’Never mind, dear.  You look very nice in it.  After all, it was only thirty shillings.  Can you show me any extravagance of mine?’

‘Well, dear, I looked at that dressmaker’s bill yesterday.’

’O Frank, it is such a pretty dress, and you said you liked it, and you have to pay for a good cut, and you said yourself that a wife must not become dowdy after marriage, and it would have cost double as much in Regent Street.’

‘I didn’t think the dress dear.’

‘What was it, then?’

‘The silk lining of the skirt.’

‘You funny boy!’

’It cost thirty shillings extra.  Now, what can it matter if it is lined with silk or not?’