and that had never before been administered to him by any human soul. An
afternoon highly adventurous--an afternoon on which he had permitted
himself to be insulted, with worse than impunity to the insulter, by the
childish daughter of that chit Susan--an afternoon on which he had
raised his hat to Mrs. Prockter--a Saturday afternoon on which he had
foregone, on account of a woman, his customary match at bowls--this
afternoon was drawing to a close in a manner which piled thrilling event
on thrilling event.

Mrs. Butt had departed. For unnumbered years Mrs. Butt had miscooked his
meals. The little house was almost inconceivable without Mrs. Butt. And
Mrs. Butt had departed. Already he missed her as one misses an ancient
and supersensitive corn--if the simile may be permitted to one; it is a
simile not quite nice, but, then, Mrs. Butt was not quite nice either.
The fault was not hers; she was born so.

The dropping of the kidney with a _plop_, by Mrs. Butt, on the hard,
unsympathetic floor of the scullery, had constituted an extremely
dramatic moment in three lives. Certainly Mrs. Butt possessed a wondrous
instinct for theatrical effect. Helen, on the contrary, seemed to
possess none. She had advanced nonchalantly towards the kidney, and
delicately picked it up between finger and thumb, and turned it over,
and then put it on a plate.

"That's a veal kidney," she had observed.

"Art sure it isn't a sheep's kidney, lass?" James had asked, carefully
imitating Helen's nonchalance.

"Yes," she had said. "I gather you are not passionately fond of kidneys,