"And let you starve on tinned things? I don't want both of you ill," responded his wife, laughing. "You give me splendid advice except where you're concerned yourself: and there you are just no good at all. It's a pity, because it shakes my respect in you!"
"You might remember with advantage that I'm the head of the house, and treat me with reverence," he told her severely. "I'll be forced to take steps to make you obey me!"
"I would laugh very much if you did," said his wife, with conviction. "Run away and play in your garden; I'm going to make a pudding as soon as I have fixed up Garth's room, and I really can't be bothered with heads of houses!" She swept him a mock curtsey, and was gone.
When she emerged from Garth's room half an hour later the dining-room was neat and tidy and breakfast cleared away, save for a loaf of bread ornamenting the writing-table—since the best of men is apt to overlook such unconsidered trifles in tidying after a meal. She laughed softly, and restored it to the bread-crock. In the kitchen Tom was just finishing washing dishes.
"Oh, you blessed person!" Aileen said gratefully. "But you shouldn't, really, Tom!"
"Why shouldn't I?" asked her husband. "You're just jealous, because I wash up so much better than you!" A large fragment of ash from his pipe fell into his dish as he spoke, and clung lovingly to the saucepan he was cleansing.
"H'm!" said his wife. "Well, I don't drop tobacco ashes in, at all events!"
"That's more jealousy, because you can't smoke," said he loftily. "Every one who is well brought up knows that ashes are invaluable, for cleaning saucepans!" He polished vigorously. "There—look at your old porridge-pot!"—waving a wet and gleaming aluminium utensil at her, regardless of a shower of soapy drops.
"It's lovely," said his wife, accepting the saucepan and the shower with meekness. "And you're a dear, though in the interests of your character I generally try to conceal the fact. What vegetables do you intend to present to your starving family to-day?"
Tom fell into the speech of the Chinese gardener who had supplied them in the city.