"Slippery, isn't it?" he said. "My flannel was frozen to the wash-stand to-day--had to get it off with a chisel." I was prepared for these travellers' tales. I knew he was leading up to water-pipes. "Couldn't get my cold tub," he went on; "frozen solid overnight." I had heard of this cold tub before. "My tooth-brush froze on to my teeth," I capped him; "the teapot spout was hung with icicles, and the cat's tongue froze on to the milk when it was drinking." "How about your pipes?" he began, "Who was right about wrapping?" "Rapping," I said in well-feigned innocence--"rapping? Who rapped? Rapped on what?" That set him going. I gathered when we reached the station there was a strike on. But we found a milk-lorry travelling our way. So Smith had the entire use of my right ear into which to say, "I told you so," for an hour, while we travelled to the spot on which we win our bread. He had dragged from me the fact that our hot-water tap had also struck. The milk cans clattered. Smith chattered. So did my teeth. When I got home that night our house seemed to be more handsomely garnished with icicles than any other house I had seen that day. "Keep the home fires burning!" I said to my wife on entering. "If need be, burn the banisters and the bills and my boot-trees and everything else beginning with a 'b.' Keep us thawed and unburst, or Fitz-Jones will feel he has scored a moral victory; he will strut cross-gartered, with yellow stockings, for the rest of his days." "I don't know what you are talking about," said Evangeline, "but Christabel and I" (Christabel is our general-in-command) "have been cosseting those pipes all day. Been giving them glasses of hot water and dressing them up in all our clothes. The bath-pipe is wearing my new furs and your pyjamas, and I've put your golf stockings on the geyser-pipe. I expect they'll all blow up. Come and look at the hot-water cistern." The cistern looked dressy in Evangeline's fur coat. I added my silk hat to the geyser's cosy costume and a pair of boots on the bath-taps. But I was told not to be silly, so took them off again. I suggested that the geyser should go to a fancy-dress ball as "The Winter of our Discontent," but was again told not to be silly. Two days elapsed. The frost held. Then something happened. Fitz-Jones's lady-help came round at 7.30 A.M. to borrow a drop of water, as they were frozen up. We lent them several drops, and I breathed again, and continued to breathe, with snorts of derision. Three days later the thaw came. As I passed Fitz-Jones's house I was grieved to hear a splashing sound. A cascade of water was spouting from his bathroom window. Fitz-Jones himself was running round and round the house like a madman, flourishing a water-key and trying to find the tap to the main. I begged him to be calm, to control himself for his wife's sake, for all our sakes. I was most graceful and sympathetic about it. But with the thaw Fitz-Jones had frozen again.