“Thanks. Really thanks, Effie. I know I’m a bore, but if the old song has a good tune to it I don’t see why I shouldn’t sing twice. It _is_ a good tune,” he went on with a passion which belied his surface flippancy. “It’s the best I have in me, which mayn’t be saying much, because I’ve a rotten ear for music, but this tune’s got me badly, like the diseases they play on the barrel-organs, and I can’t lose it. I get up to it in the morning, and I go to bed to it at night, and it’s ringing in my ears all day. Effie, I’m not much of a cove and I’ve flattered myself that sincerity departed from me when I cut my wisdom teeth. I tried to live up to that belief and it’s only half come off. I’ve tried to make a raree-show of life, to sit outside and watch the puppets play, and life’s won. Life’s got me down, and I’m inside now. I’m where you’ve put me, and a good place too: I’m near the radiator and it warms the cockles of my heart. But I never liked radiators. Mind you, I can do with them and I can be grateful for them. If a season ticket for life for a seat near the radiator is all that you can give me, I can keep a stiff upper lip and thank you for what I’ve got. But I never had a passion for radiators, and I do like fires. There’s life in a fire Must it be just the radiator, or can you make it hearth and home for us?” “Dubby,” she said, “I told you before.” “I know. Nothing doing in second thoughts?” She shook her head. “All right. I only got drunk last time. This time it will need the binge of my life. I’d cherished hopes of this.” “Drunk,” she said reproachfully. “With a stiff upper lip?” “Oh, I dunno,” he said. “It takes a stiff upper lip to get me to the dentist’s, but I make him use an anæsthetic all the same. Still, if you’d rather I didn’t----” “I think it would be braver.” “Right. But I’d like to hit something. There’s nobody you’d like me to hit, is there?” “Of course not.” “Sure?” he said. He had it well in mind that somebody ought to hit Sam. “Let’s get back to where we were before I made a stump oration--to when I came in and you looked at me like a friend.” “I hope I always shall.” “All right. It’s the privilege of a friend to be impertinent, and I’m rather good at impertinence. You see, Effie old thing, you’re supposed to be one of the world’s workers, and you’re not at the office to-day. You haven’t been at the office for weeks. I know, because I gave Florrie half a crown.” Florrie was the maid. “And it isn’t that you’ve come into money, because Florrie tells me you’ve been starving yourself.” “I’ve not.” Effie was indignant. She had not starved herself. While all was dreary, food had certainly not attracted her, but neither had anything else; and she expected to take a lively interest in it now. “Really I’ve not.”