“And it is messy things like that you want me to write about!” he exclaimed. “About the gasoline engine going on another strike, and Drake’s forgetting to tell you we were all out of sugar until late Saturday night! Never mind, Mrs. Kennaston! you will be sorry for this, and you will weep the bitter tears of unavailing repentance, some day, when you ride in the front automobile with the Governor to the unveiling of my various monuments, and have fallen into the anecdotage of a great man’s widow.” He spoke lightly, but he was reflecting that in reality Kathleen did not read his book because she did not regard any of his doings very seriously. “Isn’t this the third time this week we have had herring for breakfast?” he inquired, pleasantly. “I think I will wait and let them scramble me a couple of eggs. It is evidently a trifle that has escaped your attention, my darling, during our long years of happy married life, that I don’t eat herring. But of course, just as you say, you have a number of much more important things than husbands to think about. I dislike having to put any one to any extra trouble on my account; but as it happens, I have a lot of work to do this morning, and I cannot very well get through it on an empty stomach.” “We haven’t had it since Saturday, Felix.” Then wearily, to the serving-girl, “Cora, see if Mr. Kennaston can have some eggs.... I wish you wouldn’t upset things so, Felix. Your coffee will get stone-cold; and it is hard enough to keep servants as it is. Besides, you know perfectly well to-day is Thursday, and the library has to be thorough-cleaned.” “That means of course I am to be turned out-of-doors and forced to waste a whole day somewhere in town. It is quite touching how my creature comforts are catered to in this house!” And Kathleen began to laugh, ruefully. “You are just a great big baby, Felix. You are sulking and swelling up like a frog, because you think I don’t appreciate what a wonderful husband I have and what a wonderful book he has written.” Then Kennaston began to laugh also. He knew that what she said was tolerably true, even to the batrachian simile. “When you insisted on adopting me, dear, you ought to have realized what you were letting yourself in for.” “—And I do think,” Kathleen went on, evincing that conviction with which she as a rule repeated other people’s remarks—“that you ought to make your next book something that deals with real life. _Men Who Loved Alison_ is beautifully written and all that, but, exactly as the _Tucson Pioneer_ said, it is really just colorful soapbubbly nonsense.” “Ah, but is it unadulterated nonsense, Kathleen, that somewhere living may be a uniformly noble transaction?” he debated—“and human passions never be in a poor way to find expression with adequate speech and action?” Pleased with the phrase, and feeling in a better temper, he began to butter a roll.