and the orient respectively. Bread-and-butter stood, rightly, for the
centre of the universe. Silver ornamented the spread, and Alice's two
tea-pots (for she would never allow even Chinese tea to remain on the
leaves for more than five minutes) and Alice's water-jug with the patent
balanced lid, occupied a tray off the cloth. At some distance, but still
on the table, a kettle moaned over a spirit-lamp. Alice was cutting
bread for toast. The fire was of the right redness for toast, and a
toasting-fork lay handy. As winter advanced, Alice's teas had a tendency
to become cosier and cosier, and also more luxurious, more of a
ritualistic ceremony. And to avoid the trouble and danger of going
through a cold passage to the kitchen, she arranged matters so that the
entire operation could be performed with comfort and decency in the
sitting-room itself.

Priam was rolling cigarettes, many of them, and placing them, as he
rolled them, in order on the mantelpiece. A happy, mild couple! And a
couple, one would judge from the richness of the tea, with no immediate
need of money. Over two years, however, had passed since the catastrophe
to Cohoon's, and Cohoon's had in no way recovered therefrom. Yet money
had been regularly found for the household. The manner of its finding
was soon to assume importance in the careers of Priam and Alice. But,
ere that moment, an astonishing and vivid experience happened to them.
One might have supposed that, in the life of Priam Farll at least,
enough of the astonishing and the vivid had already happened.
Nevertheless, what had already happened was as customary and unexciting
as addressing envelopes, compared to the next event.

The next event began at the instant when Alice was sticking the long
fork into a round of bread. There was a knock at the front door, a knock
formidable and reverberating, the knock of fate, perhaps, but fate