Mr. Kipling seems to have got an encore.
A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT.
Anne was standing in the hall looking like nothing on earth. One of the reasons why I gave in to Anne and married her was because of her repose. She can look more tragic than Bernhardt, but she never makes a noise. In moments of domestic stress, as when the six hens we had purchased contributed one egg and that in the next garden (date of birth unknown), Anne assumes a plaintive smile that leaves the English language at the post. When the cook, who wears a frayed ulster ornamented with regimental badges ranging from the Royal Scots to the Brixton Cyclists, looked on the wine and went further, Anne did not blurt out crudities. Having shut the kitchen-door behind her, she simply entered the hall and walked smoothly to the plate where any persons who call may leave cards. Already she had soothed the house; and in that splendid silence, that pursuit of the commonplace, she had not merely calmed my dread of the scene that accompanies a cab and a constable, but had carolled, as it were, to Ethel the nursery-maid tilted over the second floor banisters that all was well, or nearly so.