"Because," I answered, "I may not have occasion to draw my handkerchief from its usual place, whereas I always have to take my hat off."
"How will you remember the quantity?".
"Well, fourteen pounds make one stone, don't they? Before I remember the hard thing is a piece of sugar I shall think it's a stone."
Joan sniffed contemptuously.
"Then there's my ring," she continued, "the diamond and sapphire one that I left for resetting. The estimate they promised has not come, and besides there's the——"
"Hold on a minute!" I cried. "Just tie a piece of cotton round my married finger."
She did so. Then she went on:
"The drawing-room clock should have been sent home, cleaned, last Friday. They haven't sent it."
"Perhaps they expected it to run down," I suggested.
Joan bore up wonderfully, and merely said, "Well—do something. Put the sardines in your pocket-book, or the marmalade in your gloves."