"The under housemaid has fallen into a refreshing sleep," she announced, "and the action of the skin has set in. In fact, she will do very well now. And how are you, dear James, this morning?"
"I am very well," said he; "very well indeed, thank you, mother."
His mother looked at him with interest.
"You've got a touch of liver," she remarked truculently.
"No, I think not. I feel very well, thanks."
Lady Hayes snapped her scissors.
"I'm afraid the harvest will be very bad this year," she said. "There's been no rain, and no rain means no straw."
"Yes, the farmers are in a bad way," said Lord Hayes. "I shall have to make a reduction again."
"Well, dear," said his mother, "all I can say is that we shall probably be beggars. But porridge is wonderfully sustaining."
"We've still got a few acres in London," he remarked. "Really, in these depressed times, I don't know how a man could live without an acre or two there."