husband. She was glad to do so; for Mr. Baines was never to be
left alone under any circumstances, and the convenience of being
able to rely upon the presence of a staid member of the
Pharmaceutical Society for six hours of a given day every week
outweighed the slight affront to her prerogatives as wife and
house-mistress. Mr. Critchlow was an extremely peculiar man, but
when he was in the bedroom she could leave the house with an easy
mind. Moreover, John Baines enjoyed these Thursday afternoons. For
him, there was 'none like Charles Critchlow.' The two old friends
experienced a sort of grim, desiccated happiness, cooped up
together in the bedroom, secure from women and fools generally.
How they spent the time did not seem to be certainly known, but
the impression was that politics occupied them. Undoubtedly Mr.
Critchlow was an extremely peculiar man. He was a man of habits.
He must always have the same things for his tea. Black-currant
jam, for instance. (He called it "preserve.") The idea of offering
Mr. Critchlow a tea which did not comprise black-currant jam was
inconceivable by the intelligence of St. Luke's Square. Thus for
years past, in the fruit-preserving season, when all the house and
all the shop smelt richly of fruit boiling in sugar, Mrs. Baines
had filled an extra number of jars with black-currant jam,
'because Mr. Critchlow wouldn't TOUCH any other sort.'

So Sophia, faced with the shut door of the bedroom, went down to
the parlour by the shorter route. She knew that on going up again,
after tea, she would find the devastated tray on the doormat.

Constance was helping Mr. Povey to mussels and cockles. And Mr.
Povey still wore one of the antimacassars. It must have stuck to
his shoulders when he sprang up from the sofa, woollen