Mrs. Houghton, looking at her list, agreed, and when he got out for the mail she was still checking off people and purchases; it was only when she had added one or two more errands that she suddenly awoke to the fact that he was very slow in coming back with the letters. "Stupid!" she thought, "opening your mail in the post office, instead of keeping it to read while I'm shopping!"—but even as she reproached him, he came out and climbed into the buggy, in very evident perturbation.
"Where do you want to go?" he said; she, asking no questions (marvelous woman!) told him. He said "G'tap!" angrily; Lion backed, and the wheel screeched against the curb. "Oh, g'on!" he said. Lion switched his tail, caught a rein under it, and trotted off. Mr. Houghton leaned over the dashboard, swore softly, and gave the horse a slap with the rescued rein. But the outburst loosened the dumb distress that had settled upon him in the post office; he gave a despairing grunt:
"Well! Maurice has come the final cropper."
"Smith's next, dear," she said; "What is it, Henry?"
"He's gone on the rocks (druggist Smith, or fish Smith?)"
"Druggist. Has Maurice been drinking?" She could not keep the anxiety out of her voice.
"Drinking? He could be as drunk as a lord and I wouldn't—Whoa, Lion!... Get me some shaving soap, Kit!" he called after her, as she went into the shop.
When she came back with her packages and got into the buggy, she said, quietly, "Tell me, Henry."
"He has simply done what I put him in the way of doing when I gave him a letter of introduction to that Mrs. Newbolt, in Mercer."
"Newbolt? I don't remember—"