He says there's going to be a new departure in this house, and
that things all round are going to be very different. He suddenly
remembers every rule and regulation he has made during the past ten
years for the guidance of everybody, and that everybody, himself
included, has forgotten. He tries to talk about them all at once, in
haste lest he should forget them again. By the time he has succeeded
in getting himself, if nobody else, to understand himself, the
children are swarming round his knees extracting from him promises
that in his sober moments he will be sorry that he made.
I knew a woman--a wise and good woman she was--who when she noticed
that her husband's temper was causing him annoyance, took pains to
help him to get rid of it. To relieve his sufferings I have known
her search the house for a last month's morning paper and, ironing it
smooth, lay it warm and neatly folded on his breakfast plate.
"One thing in this world to be thankful for, at all events, and that
is that we don't live in Ditchley-in-the-Marsh," he would growl ten
minutes later from the other side of it.
"Sounds a bit damp," the good woman would reply.
"Damp!" he would grunt, "who minds a bit of damp! Good for you.
Makes us Englishmen what we are. Being murdered in one's bed about
once a week is what I should object to."
"Do they do much of that sort of thing down there?" the good woman
would enquire.
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