like a thing--like that picture in one of the Christmas Annuals--I
always say, 'Now I call that artistic,' don't I, Ern?"

Her husband nodded with his mouth full of the best bloater.

"Well, you couldn't call that thing artistic, Mrs. Hewson, if you
mean the thing that's over the piano in the sitting-room?"

"Why not?" asked Janet; "don't you like it?"

"No," said Mr. Arthur emphatically, "nor any one else either, I
should think. I bet you a shilling they wouldn't."

"But Mrs. Hewson does," Janet replied quietly. "Doesn't that satisfy
you that it must be artistic, since some one likes it?"

Mrs. Hewson, finding herself suddenly the object of the conversation,
picked her teeth in hurried confusion. Her husband surveyed the
company over the rim of his cup and then returned to his reading of
the evening paper.

During the weighted silence that followed Janet's last remark, he
laid down his paper.

"I see," he said, "as 'ow there are some people up in the north of
England 'aving what they call Pentecostal visitations."

Mrs. Hewson laughed tentatively, the uncertain giggle that scarcely
dares to come between the teeth. She knew her husband's leaning
towards the arid humour of an obscure joke.