'Matter? Must something be the matter that I venture into my own breakfast-room of a morning?'
'No, no. Only I thought, as Doris didn't come, you were breakfasting upstairs, too.' No notice being taken of this, she at once set about heating water, for no one expected Mr. Fox-Moore to drink tea made in the kitchen.
'I thought,' said he, twitching an open newspaper off the table and folding it up—'I thought I asked to be allowed the privilege of opening my paper for myself.'
'Your Times hasn't been touched,' said his wife, anxiously occupied with the spirit-lamp.
He stopped in the act of thrusting the paper in his pocket and shook it.
'What do you call this?'
'That is my Times,' she said.
'Your Times?'
'I ordered an extra copy, because you dislike so to have yours looked at till you've finished with it.'
'Dreadful hardship that is!' he said, glancing round, and seeing his own particular paper neatly folded and lying still on the side table.