It was evening, before dark and yet some little time after supper, when Ambrose, ruminating on his back kitchen steps and worrying over the present situation, heard a noise of pots and pans that sounded like a skirmish of light artillery proceeding from his neighbour's house next door. So purposely assuming the expression of innocent solemnity that seemed most to inflame Mrs. Susan, he cautiously stepped across from his back yard to hers. On the door stoop he discovered Susan Jr., who, as the occupant of a hard chair, had both white stockinged legs stuck rebelliously out before her and, resting on her spinal column, held "Fox's Book of Martyrs" open in her lap. However, she was _not_ reading it. Sensing his approach before ever he could speak, Mrs. Barrows made an immediate appearance. She had a saucepan in her hand and her black eyes were wary. They were well matched adversaries, she and Ambrose, and, although already understanding perfectly the object of his visit, some time must pass before the one or the other could be forced into a surrender. "Raisin' children is killin' work, Ambrose," Susan began at once, darting a direful glance at her offspring. And Ambrose's voice was honey: "Most anythin's killin' work, ain't it, Susan?" he returned, depositing himself on the floor of her stoop so that his long legs overhung the side allowing his feet to touch the ground. "I've heard of folks lyin' in bed and doin' nothin' but singin' psa'ms continuous, and yet comin' to the same end." "It's a lot peacefuller way." Mrs. Barrows' interest was now so plainly concentrated within her saucepan, whirling a kitchen towel around and around in it until its revolutions were fairly dizzying, that nothing could seem more remote from the remarks and behaviour of herself and her neighbour than any introduction of the subject uppermost in both their minds. However, Susan Jr. did not belong to that noble army whose lives were at the present instant recorded in her lap, for, shutting up "The Book of Martyrs," she sniffed: "I didn't do nothin' but laugh and tell the female delegation about the King with his ten thousand men who marched up a hill and then marched down again," she explained. And in the face of this information what was the use of either Mrs. Barrows or Ambrose trying further to avoid the issue? The time had come for a voluntary surrender.