"He's coming to-night to see the place," Mrs. Bindle announced, "and don't you go and make me feel ashamed. You'd better keep out of the room."
"'Ow could you!" cried Bindle reproachfully, as he proceeded to light his pipe. "Me——"
"Don't do that!" snapped Mrs. Bindle.
Bindle regarded her over the flaming match with eyebrows raised interrogatingly.
"Perhaps he doesn't smoke," she explained.
"But I ain't goin' to give up tobacco," said Bindle with decision. "'Oly Angels! me with a wife an a lodger an' no pipe!"
He looked about him as if in search of sympathy. Then turning to Mrs. Bindle, he demanded:
"You mean to say I got to give up smokin' for a lodger!" Indignation had smoothed out the wrinkles round his eyes and stilled the twitchings at the corners of his mouth.
"It doesn't matter after he's here," Mrs. Bindle responded sagely.
Slowly the set-expression vanished from Bindle's face; the wrinkles and twitches returned, and he breathed a sigh of elaborate relief.