'I will soon make the tea, mother.'

'Will you?' she says eagerly. It is what she has come to me for,
but 'It is a pity to rouse you,' she says.

'And I will take charge of the house to-day, and light the fires
and wash the dishes - '

'Na, oh no; no, I couldna ask that of you, and you an author.'

'It won't be the first time, mother, since I was an author.'

'More like the fiftieth!' she says almost gleefully, so I have
begun well, for to keep up her spirits is the great thing to-day.

Knock at the door. It is the baker. I take in the bread, looking
so sternly at him that he dare not smile.

Knock at the door. It is the postman. (I hope he did not see that
I had the lid of the kettle in my other hand.)

Furious knocking in a remote part. This means that the author is
in the coal cellar.

Anon I carry two breakfasts upstairs in triumph. I enter the
bedroom like no mere humdrum son, but after the manner of the
Glasgow waiter. I must say more about him. He had been my
mother's one waiter, the only manservant she ever came in contact
with, and they had met in a Glasgow hotel which she was eager to
see, having heard of the monstrous things, and conceived them to