"I didn't."
"Then who did?"
"Nobody did. I didn't think of it until tea-time, and then—well, the tea was there."
I once read a story where a man laughed a low, mirthless laugh. The laugh came to me quite naturally on this occasion. "Say no more," I said. "This is contemptible. Now I forbid you to get the ink—I will get it myself."
On the following night she asked me if I had bought that ink. I replied, "No, Eliza; it has been an exceptionally busy day, and I have not had the time."
"I thought you had forgotten it, perhaps."
"I supposed you would say that," I said. "In you it does not surprise me."
A week later Eliza said that she wanted to do her accounts. "I am glad of that," I said. "Now you will know the misery of living without ink in the house."