’Then we’ll buy millions of logs and cartloads of peat,’ he said. ’You’re not going to sleep in this room without a fire, or any other room for the matter of that. Why, it’s like an ice-house after India. Come on, Nannie, help me to get this female gear out of my dug-out. Don’t be cross, old girl!’ But I was cross. I hate being called a ’female’ and my clothes ’gear.’ Why do I always live with cavemen who will have their own way and trample on my deepest feelings? I determined, however, that I would try again and said, ’But the mattress has such lumps and——’ ’I adore lumps; how can you be so selfish, Meg?’ ’But I don’t want to be turned out of my room like this.’ ’Well, that’s what I keep on saying,’ said Ross. ’How inconsistent women are. What time is dinner? Can I have a bath?’ ’Just turned it on, sir,’ said Brown, coming into the room and beginning to unpack! So I left them. When Ross went downstairs I heard him call back, ’Sam, there are several things in my room that I don’t want. I’ve left them in the middle of the floor, get rid of them.’ And I wondered how Sam would carry out my brother’s impossible orders, as landladies ’don’t like things moved.’ I peeped in as I went down. Brown was gazing at a weird assortment: all the antimacassars, some of the texts, the case of birds, and the ship in the glass bottle, the hair tidy like a balloon (which I rescued for the Gidger) and last but not least the ’Believer’s Vision,’ which Ross had taken off the wall and stood upside down upon the pile, in a frantic effort to save his faith from shipwreck. I went down to dinner, and Brown waited. Liver and bacon! with that variety of mashed potato which my refined relative has from his earliest youth called ’worms.’ I refused the liver and took some bacon; so did Ross, remarking that he ’Never could eat "works."’ Brown handed Ross the next course, which was rice pudding. ’Why do you bother to offer me this filth?’ said Ross indignantly to Brown, ’you know I never touch it. What’s the other stuff, jelly? I’ll have some of that.’ ’Packet,’ said Brown, ’by the look of it, sir; shouldn’t recommend it.’ But I, determining not to be dainty, said it looked jolly good and I would have some. ’Take it away, Brown, she’s not going to eat hoofs and get a pain in her gizzard to start off with. Give her some pudding.’ Ross helped himself liberally to bread and butter and cheese. ’What funny butter,’ he observed. ’Margarine, sir.’ ’Oh, how tiring,’ said Ross, pushing it away, ’give me a clean plate. Why _can’t_ they colour it blue?’ Coffee consisted of a jug of hot milk and some black stuff in a bottle. We adjourned to the fire and I had quite a nice supper of hot milk and biscuits, apples, and chocolates; and we talked and talked, and got a bit levelled up with life after five years of separation.