"It is of no consequence," replied Montagu Falconer. "I am fairly warm in this overcoat." He coughed and shivered. "Are we having any dinner to-night?"
Peggy bit her lip, and kneeling down, began to coax the remnants of the fire into flame.
"Dinner will be at the usual hour," she said. "If you don't put coal on a fire it usually goes out, doesn't it?"
"At my time of life and in my state of health," replied her amiable parent, "I think I have a right to expect a certain modicum of comfort and attention. This room, for instance, might be kept decently heated, without—"
"If you don't like putting on coal yourself," Peggy pointed out, "you can always ring for a servant."
Suddenly the querulous Montagu blazed up.
"Servants! Exactly! I am left to the servants! I have a daughter, a grown-up daughter, who nominally directs my household. But I am left to the tender mercies of half-witted domestics, in order that my daughter may go out to tea—may trapese from one scandal-exchange to another! Do you ever consider me at all?"
"Yes, Dad,—sometimes," said Peggy, bending low over the smouldering fire. At the same moment one of the hot cinders sizzled.