Mr. Tovey grunted, and drew his chair up closer towards the fire. The weather could do what it liked, as long as it cleared up before the next morning. He certainly was not going out into it. He composed himself for his afternoon nap, from which he arose refreshed and eager for the lurid pages of his favourite Sunday paper. He studied this intently for some minutes, then turned animatedly to Mrs. Tovey. “That brute what cut up the young woman he was walking out with is committed for trial at the Old Bailey,” he said. “I reckoned he would be, the dirty brute,” replied Mrs. Tovey, who was almost as keen a criminologist as her husband. “And I’d see he didn’t get off, neither, if I was on the jury.” Mr. Tovey turned and looked at her gravely. “’Tis all very well for you to talk like that,” he said reprovingly. “It’s a terrible thing to be on a jury when a man’s life depends on what you says. Nobody knows that better than I do, I’m sure.” “Yes, I remember the state you was in that time,” replied Mrs. Tovey. “Dear, dear, best part of a week you was at it, and Ivy just born and all. What was the chap’s name? I remember he was a doctor who’d killed one of his patients by giving him a dose of something.” “Morlandson, Dr. Morlandson,” said Mr. Tovey. “Lord, whenever I eats anything as disagrees with me I dreams of his face a-looking at us from the dock. Fair gave me the creeps, it did, for a long time after. We found him guilty, and I couldn’t help looking at him when the judge put on his black cap and sentenced him. Ugh!” “But they didn’t ’ang ’im after all,” remarked Mrs. Tovey. “No, he was reprieved, I don’t rightly know why. Because he’d been a big pot in his way, I suppose. Twenty years hard he got, though, and serve ’im right. This bloke I’m telling you about won’t get off so easy, though.” Mr. Tovey returned to the perusal of his paper, and the evening wore on, the silence of the cosy kitchen broken only at intervals by the voice of Mr. Tovey, reading in a halting voice some more than usually spicy extract to his wife. Tea-time came and went, and still Ivy made no appearance. It was nearly nine o’clock when Mr. Tovey referred to her absence. “I can’t think where that girl’s got to,” he said irritably. “She’s no call to be out all this time.” “Ted’ll have taken her home to have a bite of supper,” returned Mrs. Tovey equably. “His father likes to have her round there, cheers him up, she does. She’ll be back before long, never you worry.” The reply which sprang to Mr. Tovey’s lips was checked by the urgent ringing of the telephone bell in the shop, separated from the kitchen by a door kept locked on Sundays. “Hullo! What’s that?” he enquired in a startled tone. Mrs. Tovey had already moved towards the door. “I’ll go and see,” she replied shortly. Her husband, listening intently, could hear her steps on the bare boards, the sudden cessation of the ringing as she took up the receiver, her voice as she answered, then a pause.