"Whatever do they allow this rot about food prices in the paper for?" he began. "It unsettles women awfully. Now my wife is insisting on having her housekeeping allowance advanced twenty-five per cent. I tell you she'd never have known anything about the advances if they hadn't been put before her in flaring type."
The general opinion of the compartment seemed to be that the Censor had gravely neglected his duty.
"I agreed with my wife," said Blair, who is a shrewd Scotchman, "and told her that she must have an extra two pounds a month. Now a twenty-five per cent. advance would have meant five pounds a month. Luckily Providence fashioned women without an idea of arithmetic."
Most of us looked as if we wished we had thought of this admirable idea.
"My wife drew my attention to the paper," said Greenwood loftily. "I did not argue the point with her. Finance is not woman's strong point. I rang for the cook at once."
Everyone looked admiringly at the hero who had dared to face his cook.
"I said to her," continued Greenwood, "'Cook, get the Stores price-list for to-day and serve for dinner precisely the things that have not advanced. You understand? That will do.' So you see the matter was settled."
"Er, what did your wife say?" asked Perkins.
"Say! What could she say? Here was the obvious solution. And I have noticed that women always lose their heads in an emergency. They never rise to the occasion."
The next morning I met Greenwood again.