"At my invitation, Mr. Aiken," said Mr. Hughes with some show of dignity—"at my invitation, observe!—Mrs. Gapp, who has buried three husbands and really ought to know a good deal about connubiosity—conjugosity—what the dooce is the word?..."
"Well—married life, anyhow! What did old boozey say?"
"She had great faith in a spirit of mutual conciliation. That is not precisely the way she put it. Her exact expression was 'A good 'ug's the thing, Mr. Stumpy' .... Yes—that is what Mrs. Gapp calls me, misled by your example.... I must say I think the course she indicated has much to recommend it."
Mr. Aiken looked moody, and did not reply at once. Then he said: "That's all very fine, Stump, my boy. But—Sairah! Sairah's the point. Now, mind you, I'm not suggestin' anythin'. But just you look at it this way. There was a rather nice lookin' gyairl, with a bird's wing in her hat, came for the place, and Euphemia wouldn't hear of her, don't you know! Suppose it had been her!—puts the matter on a more human footin', shouldn't you say?"
Mr. Hughes reflected, and spoke as one whose reflections had borne fruit. "Not being a married beggar myself, I can't say. Speaking as a single cuss, my recommendation to you would be—speaking broadly—not to make an Ass of yourself. See what I'm driving at?"
"That means," said Mr. Aiken, "that you consider I ought to go and beg Euphemia's gracious pardon, and take the blame of the whole how-do-you-do on my own shoulders, and as like as not have to go to Church with Aunt Priscilla. Well—I won't, and there's an end of it!"
And Mr. Aiken didn't, and prolonged his uncomfortable circumstances quite to the end of the year. But it is only right to say that his wife contributed all her share to their extension and consolidation. In fact, if this story has achieved the wish of its compiler, ourself, it should be clear to its reader that Mr. Reginald and Mrs. Euphemia Aiken were precisely six of the one and half a dozen of the other.
CHAPTER VII
The Upwell family in London. How Madeline promised not to get mixed up. A nice suburban boy, with a Two-Power Standard. No Jack now! The silver teapot. Miss Priscilla's extraction. Imperialism. Horace Walpole and John Bunyan. The Tapleys. How an item in the Telegraph upset Madeline. How she failed in her mission, but left a photograph behind her. The late Lady Betty Dusters's chin. How Mrs. Aiken stayed downstairs and went to sleep in an arm-chair, and of a curious experience she had. How she related the same to her cousin Volumnia. Of Icilia Ciaranfi and Donnina Magliabecchi, and of The Dust. The Psychomorphic Report. How Miss Volumnia did not lose her train.