kitchen at the last moment had discovered itself to be short of
coffee. An entirely commonplace episode! Yes, but it is out of
commonplace episodes that martyrs are made, and Omicron had been made
a martyr. He, if none else, was fully aware that evening that he was a
martyr. And the woman had selected just that evening to raise the
question of rings, gauds, futile ornamentations! He had said little.
But he had stood for the universal husband, and in Mrs. Omicron he saw
the universal wife.



III


His reflections ran somewhat thus:

"Surely a simple matter to keep enough coffee in the house! A
schoolgirl could do it! And yet they let themselves run short of
coffee! I ask for nothing out of the way. I make no inordinate demands
on the household. But I do like good coffee. And I can't have it!
Strange! As for that mutton--one would think there was no clock in the
kitchen. One would think that nobody had ever cooked a leg of mutton
before. How many legs of mutton have they cooked between them in their
lives? Scores; hundreds; I dare say thousands. And yet it hasn't yet
dawned on them that a leg of mutton of a certain weight requires a
certain time for cooking, and that if it is put down late one of two
things must occur--either it will be undercooked or the dinner will be
late! Simple enough! Logical enough! Four women in the house (three
servants and the wicked, negligent Mrs. Omicron), and yet they must
needs waste a leg of mutton through nothing but gross carelessness! It