THE LITTLE RIFT.

My wife and I are in perfect agreement about everything. We are like the
Allied Ministers who meet at Paris; we always "arrive at a complete
understanding" in all matters of policy. When strict economy was enjoined
upon us I moved my desk into the dining-room to save a fire. She made a
summer hat out of a bit of my old Panama, encased in the remnants of an
evening gown. All was well.

I should be giving you a wrong impression altogether if I were to suggest
that there was the slightest difference of opinion between us. I most
solemnly declare that I am as good a patriot as she is. Still, as time goes
on, I do feel a certain uneasiness, a suggestion of a new domestic element
that needs watching.

We are both in it, but the initiative rests with her. She asks me to take
two Belgian refugees and the housemaid and the dog and the laundry-hamper
along with me in the two-seater to the station, to save petrol. Well, I am
willing. She fills the herbaceous border with alternating potatoes and
carnations. Well, I am more than willing. She bottles peas and beans. And I
say to you that I am proud and happy that she should think of these things.

Above all she gets at the very root of the food problem. I should say that
here she has advantages over some, as I belong to the class of husband
known as Easily Fed. She has got hold of a whole sheaf of leaflets from the
War Office or somewhere--"When is a pie not a pie?" "Leave out the egg;"
"How to make something out of something else," etc., etc.; and we feed on
those chiefly. She knows I don't like rabbits, and yet I am well aware that
rabbits are repeatedly insinuated in such forms as not to leave a single