“Why should she cook for us? Why should she come out in the wet to cook for us? Why should any woman cook for fourteen years without interruption?” “She did it joyfully, Jellaby, for the comfort and sustenance of her husband, as every virtuous woman ought.” “I think,” said he, “it would choke me.” “What would choke you?” “Food produced by the unceasing labour of my wife. Why should she be treated as a servant when she gets neither wages nor the privilege of giving notice and going away?” “No wages? Her wages, young gentleman, are the knowledge that she has done her duty to her husband.” “Thin, thin,” he murmured, digging his fork into the nearest sausage. “And as for going away, I must say I am surprised you should connect such a thought with any respectable lady.” Indeed, what he said was so ridiculous, and so young, and so on the face of it unmarried that in my displeasure I moved the umbrella for a moment far enough to one side to allow the larger drops collected on its metal tips to fall on to his bent and practically collarless (he wore a flannel shirt with some loose apology for a collar of the same material) neck. “Hullo,” he said, “you’re letting the sausages get wet.” “You talk, Jellaby,” I resumed, obliged to hold the umbrella on its original position again and forcing myself to speak calmly, “in great ignorance. What can you know of marriage? Whereas I am very fully qualified to speak, for I have had, as you may not perhaps know, the families scheduled in the _Gotha Almanach_ being unlikely to come within the range of your acquaintance, two wives.” I must of course have been mistaken, but I did fancy I heard him say, partly concealing it under his breath, “God help them,” and naturally greatly startled I said very stiffly, “I beg your pardon?” But he only mumbled unintelligibly over his pan, so that no doubt I had done him an injustice; and the sausages being, as he said (not without a note of defiance in his voice), ready, which meant that for some reason or other they had one and all come out of their skins (which lay still pink in limp and lifeless groups about the pan), and were now mere masses of minced meat, he rose up from his crouching attitude, ladled them by means of a spoon into a dish, requested my umbrella’s continued company, and proceeded to make the round of caravans, holding them up at each window in turn while the ladies helped themselves from within. “And us?” I said at last, for when he had been to the third he began to return once more to the first--“and us?” “Us will get some presently,” he replied--I cannot think grammatically--holding up the already sadly reduced dish at the Ilsa’s window.