"Oh, say, Nell," he broke out, on seeing her sober, "I had the confoundedest time to-day with old lady Bingham—"
"'Sh! Baby's gone to sleep."
After the children had been put to bed in the little alcove off the sitting-room, Mrs. Sanford came back, to find Jim absorbed over a little book of accounts.
"What are you studying, Jim?"
Some one knocked on the door before he had time to reply.
"Come in!" he said.
"Sh! Don't yell so," his wife whispered.
"Telegram, Jim," said a voice in the obscurity.
"Oh! That you, Sam? Come in."
Sam, a lathy fellow with a quid in his cheek, stepped in. "How d' 'e do, Mis' Sanford?"