you will only have me, and the new partner whom I expect immediately, to
provide for. What my partner's habits may be, I cannot yet say. But I
may describe myself as a man of regular hours, with an invariable
appetite that you may depend upon to an ounce."

"About breakfast, sir?" asked Mrs. Goldstraw. "Is there anything
particular--?"

She hesitated, and left the sentence unfinished. Her eyes turned slowly
away from her master, and looked towards the chimney-piece. If she had
been a less excellent and experienced housekeeper, Mr. Wilding might have
fancied that her attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of
the interview.

"Eight o'clock is my breakfast-hour," he resumed. "It is one of my
virtues to be never tired of broiled bacon, and it is one of my vices to
be habitually suspicious of the freshness of eggs." Mrs. Goldstraw
looked back at him, still a little divided between her master's chimney-
piece and her master. "I take tea," Mr. Wilding went on; "and I am
perhaps rather nervous and fidgety about drinking it, within a certain
time after it is made. If my tea stands too long--"

He hesitated, on his side, and left the sentence unfinished. If he had
not been engaged in discussing a subject of such paramount interest to
himself as his breakfast, Mrs. Goldstraw might have fancied that his
attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of the interview.

"If your tea stands too long, sir--?" said the housekeeper, politely
taking up her master's lost thread.