"Don't be stu-stu-stupid," gasped Mrs. Hatchard. "He—he's sitting downstairs in my room with a paper cap on his head and a fire-shovel in his hand, and he—he says he's the—the Emperor of China."
"He? Who?" inquired her husband.
"Mr. Sad-Sadler," replied Mrs. Hatchard, almost strangling him. "He made me kneel in front o' him and keep touching the floor with my head."
The chair-bedstead shook in sympathy with Mr. Hatchard's husbandly emotion.
"Well, it's nothing to do with me," he said at last.
"He's mad," said his wife, in a tense whisper; "stark staring mad. He says I'm his favorite wife, and he made me stroke his forehead."
The bed shook again.
"I don't see that I have any right to interfere," said Mr. Hatchard, after he had quieted the bedstead. "He's your lodger."
"You're my husband," said Mrs. Hatchard. "Ho!" said Mr. Hatchard. "You've remembered that, have you?"
"Yes, Alfred," said his wife.