We had been having a little domestic trouble, and the lady in the kitchen had wafted herself away.
This sometimes makes a man sad, especially if his wife is seized with some of her old-time enthusiasm and joyously declares she will look up those recipe books, arranged at the time she went to cooking school.
I knew I was in for another dose of dyspepsia and had on my part been trying to remember the dozens of patent medicines to which I had given a trial on the last occasion, and which of them had been least injurious.
Of course, man-like, I poured my woes into the ear of Podgers, hoping for sympathy.
"Do you have any trouble keeping a cook?" I asked.
He laughed in a cold-blooded way.
"Not in the least—not such good luck, my boy. You see our cook has a lien on the place. She's my wife," he said.
Well, I wouldn't have said that, no matter what I thought.
But then Podgers always has been considerably henpecked at home, even if an arrogant chap downtown.