"I'm not sure it wouldn't be the right life for me. I'm naturally a man of action. I do the book-keeping well enough, but adventures and emergencies are more my line. You remember what the magistrate said when—"
"I remember how drunk you were that night."
"Little you know!" said Smithers, though conscious that the retort was somewhat vague. After some meditation he managed to supplement it as follows: "And little you care either—top button's been off my wescut for the last four days."
"You've got a tongue in your head to ask with, haven't you? Give it here and don't grumble."
And a little later Alfred Smithers, with a distinct chill on the heroism, went up to bed.
The chill was even more distinct when in the small hours of the morning Mrs Smithers shook him by the shoulder, awoke him, told him that there was a burglar in the kitchen, and asked him to go down.
In the small hours of the morning one's vitality is low.
III
They had been unable to get any satisfactory sleep after the disturbance, and they breakfasted early. Mrs Smithers looked amused; Alfred Smithers looked conciliatory.
"I want you to understand how it was," he said pleadingly.