limit yourself to one glass. You then offer this vulgar man, who
made a bungle of repairing our scraper, a seat in our cab on the
way home. I say nothing about his tearing my dress in getting in
the cab, nor of treading on Mrs. James's expensive fan, which you
knocked out of my hand, and for which he never even apologised; but
you smoked all the way home without having the decency to ask my
permission. That is not all! At the end of the journey, although
he did not offer you a farthing towards his share of the cab, you
asked him in. Fortunately, he was sober enough to detect, from my
manner, that his company was not desirable."

Goodness knows I felt humiliated enough at this; but, to make
matters worse, Gowing entered the room, without knocking, with two
hats on his head and holding the garden-rake in his hand, with
Carrie's fur tippet (which he had taken off the downstairs hall-
peg) round his neck, and announced himself in a loud, coarse voice:
"His Royal Highness, the Lord Mayor!" He marched twice round the
room like a buffoon, and finding we took no notice, said: "Hulloh!
what's up? Lovers' quarrel, eh?"

There was a silence for a moment, so I said quietly: "My dear
Gowing, I'm not very well, and not quite in the humour for joking;
especially when you enter the room without knocking, an act which I
fail to see the fun of."

Gowing said: "I'm very sorry, but I called for my stick, which I
thought you would have sent round." I handed him his stick, which
I remembered I had painted black with the enamel paint, thinking to
improve it. He looked at it for a minute with a dazed expression
and said: "Who did this?"