"Bob," she said, factitiously calm. "You don't know what I've just
remembered!"

"Well?" said he.

"It's only grandma's birthday to-day!"

My friend Robert Brindley, the architect, struck the table with a
violent fist, making his little boys blink, and then he said quietly:

"_The_ deuce!"

I gathered that grandmamma's birthday had been forgotten and that it was
not a festival that could be neglected with impunity. Both Mr and Mrs
Brindley had evidently a humorous appreciation of crises, contretemps,
and those collisions of circumstances which are usually called
"junctures" for short. I could have imagined either of them saying to
the other: "Here's a funny thing! The house is on fire!" And then
yielding to laughter as they ran for buckets. Mrs Brindley, in
particular, laughed now; she gazed at the table-cloth and laughed almost
silently to herself; though it appeared that their joint forgetfulness
might result in temporary estrangement from a venerable ancestor who was
also, birthdays being duly observed, a continual fount of rich presents
in specie.

Robert Brindley drew a time-table from his breast-pocket with the rapid
gesture of habit. All men of business in the Five Towns seem to carry
that time-table in their breast-pockets. Then he examined his watch
carefully.