The question was so sudden and wholly unexpected, and my mental apparatus was so taken up with the story that I found myself with no ideas whatever on the subject Indeed I do not believe that my wife wanted me to guess what she saw, half so much as she wanted breath; but I gave the only reply which the circumstances appeared to admit of, and which, I was pleased to see, in spite of its seeming inadequacy, was as perfectly satisfactory to the blessed little woman as if it had been made to order and proven a perfect fit.
"I can't imagine," said I.
"Of course you can't," she replied, pushing my crossed legs into position, and seating herself on my knees.
"Of course you can't. A man couldn't. Well, it seems their servant left last night, and that blessed man was washing the dishes this morning. The difference of opinion had been over which one of them should do it."
"Why, the confounded brute!" said I. "He is a good deal better able to do it than she is. She looks sick, and so long as he has no business to attend to down here, he has as much time as she and a good deal more strength to do that kind of work."
"Well, I just knew you'd look at it that way," said my wife, with an inflection of pride and admiration which indicated that I had made a ten strike of some kind, of which few men—and not many women—would be capable.
"But that was not it at all," continued she.
I began laboriously to readjust my mental moorings to this seemingly complicated situation, and was on the verge of wondering why my wife was so pleased with me for simply making a mistake, when she began again, after giving me a little pat of unqualified satisfaction and sympathy.
"They both wanted to do it. She said she wasn't a bit tired and could do it alone just as well as not, and he'd break the glasses with his funny, great, big fingers; and he said he'd be careful not to break anything, and that the dish-water would spoil her hands."
"Good," said I, "I shall like the fellow. I———"