'Put another lump of sugar in father's cup, Bessie. He likes it sweet.'
'Well,' continues the irrepressible Jim, 'looking forward to that, they ought to be honest and fair to the men, and not try to take them in by painting themselves up. It's a good many years ago that I fell in love with you, mother, and a bright-looking girl you was when you said Yes, to me. You wore roses then, mother! But if, when I married you, I had found that the roses in your cheek came off with a damp towel, and that you hadn't any eyebrows to speak of except what you put on with a brush, and that what I saw of your skin before I married you was a deal whiter than what I saw of your skin after I married you,--I'd--I'd----'
'What on earth would you have done, father?' asks Mrs. Naldret, laughing.
'I'd have had you up before the magistrate,' replies Jim Naldret, with a look of sly humour. 'I'd have had you fined, as sure as my name's Jim.'
'That wouldn't have hurt me,' says Mrs. Naldret, entering into the humour of the idea, and winking at Bessie; 'my husband would have had to pay the fine.'
Jim Naldret gives a great laugh at this conclusion of the argument, in appreciation of having been worsted by these last few pithy words, and says, with an admiring look at his wife,
'Well, let you women alone!'
Then, this subject being disposed of, and Jim Naldret having had his say, Mrs. Naldret asks if he has brought home the Ha'penny Trumpet.
'Yes,' he answers, 'here it is. A great comfort to the poor man are the ha'penny papers. He gets all the news of the day for a ha'penny--all the police-courts----'.
'Ah,' interrupts Mrs. Naldret, 'that's the sort of reading I like. Give me a newspaper with plenty of police-court cases.'