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\title{Mrs. Korner Sins Her Mercies}

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\title{Mrs. Korner Sins her Mercies}


\author{Jerome K. Jerome}

\maketitle

\chapter*{Prefatory Materials}

\markboth{Jerome K. Jerome}{Mrs. Korner Sins Her Mercies}

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\chapter*{\protect\raggedright MRS.\ KORNER SINS HER MERCIES}

\markboth{Jerome K. Jerome}{Mrs. Korner Sins Her Mercies}

{}``I do mean it,'' declared Mrs.\ Korner, {}``I like a man to
be a man.''

{}``But you would not like Christopher--I mean Mr.\ Korner--to be
that sort of man,'' suggested her bosom friend.

{}``I don't mean that I should like it if he did it often. But I
should like to feel that he was able to be that sort of man.--Have
you told your master that breakfast is ready?'' demanded Mrs.\ Korner
of the domestic staff, entering at the moment with three boiled eggs
and a teapot.

{}``Yus, I've told 'im,'' replied the staff indignantly.

The domestic staff at Acacia Villa, Ravenscourt Park, lived in a state
of indignation. It could be heard of mornings and evenings saying
its prayers indignantly.

{}``What did he say?''

{}``Said 'e'11 be down the moment 'e's dressed.''

{}``Nobody wants him to come before,'' commented Mrs.\ Korner. {}``Answered
me that he was putting on his collar when I called up to him five
minutes ago.''

{}``Answer yer the same thing now, if yer called up to 'im agen,
I 'spect,'' was the opinion of the staff. {}``Was on 'is 'ands and
knees when I looked in, scooping round under the bed for 'is collar
stud.''

Mrs.\ Korner paused with the teapot in her hand. {}``Was he talking?''

{}``Talkin'? Nobody there to talk to; I adn't got no time to stop
and chatter.''

{}``I mean to himself,'' explained Mrs.\ Korner. {}``He--he wasn't
swearing?'' There was a note of eagerness, almost of hope, in Mrs.\ Korner's
voice.

{}``Swearin'! 'E! Why, 'e don't know any.''

{}``Thank you,'' said Mrs.\ Korner. {}``That will do, Harriet;
you may go.''

Mrs Korner put down the teapot with a bang. {}``The very girl,''
said Mrs.\ Korner bitterly, {}``the very girl despises him.''

{}``Perhaps,'' suggested Miss Greene, {}``he had been swearing
and had finished.''

But Mrs.\ Korner was not to be comforted. {}``Finished! Any other
man would have been swearing all the time.''

{}``Perhaps,'' suggested the kindly bosom friend, ever the one to
plead the cause of the transgressor, {}``perhaps he was swearing,
and she did not hear him. You see, if he had his head well underneath
the bed--''

The door opened.

{}``Sorry I am late,'' said Mr.\ Korner, bursting cheerfully into
the room. It was a point with Mr.\ Korner always to be cheerful in
the morning. {}``Greet the day with a smile and it will leave you
with a blessing,'' was the motto Mrs.\ Korner, this day a married
woman of six months and three weeks standing had heard her husband
murmur before getting out of bed on precisely two hundred and two
occasions. The Motto entered largely into the scheme of Mr.\ Korner's
life. Written in fine copperplate upon cards all of the same size,
a choice selection counselled him each morning from the rim of his
shaving-glass.

{}``Did you find it?'' asked Mrs.\ Korner.

{}``It is most extraordinary,'' replied Mr.\ Korner, as he seated
himself at the breakfast-table. {}``I saw it go under the bed with
my own eyes. Perhaps--''

{}``Don't ask me to look for it,'' interrupted Mrs.\ Korner. {}``Crawling
about on their hands and knees, knocking their heads against iron
bedsteads, would be enough to make some people swear.'' The emphasis
was on the {}``some.''

{}``It is not bad training for the character,'' hinted Mr.\ Korner,
{}``occasionally to force oneself to perform patiently tasks calculated--''

{}``If you get tied up in one of those long sentences of yours, you
will never get out in time to eat your breakfast,'' was the fear
of Mrs. Korner.

{}``I should be sorry for anything to happen to it,'' remarked Mr.\ Korner,
{}``its intrinsic value may perhaps--''

{}``I will look for it after breakfast,'' volunteered the amiable
Miss Greene. {}``I am good at finding things.''

{}``I can well believe it,'' the gallant Mr.\ Korner assured her,
as with the handle of his spoon he peeled his egg. {}``From such
bright eyes as yours, few--''

{}``You've only got ten minutes,'' his wife reminded him. {}``Do
get on with your breakfast.''

{}``I should like,'' said Mr.\ Korner, {}``to finish a speech occasionally.''

{}``You never would,'' asserted Mrs.\ Korner.

{}``I should like to try,'' sighed Mr.\ Korner, {}``one of these
days--''

{}``How did you sleep, dear? I forgot to ask you,'' questioned Mrs.
Korner of the bosom friend.

{}``I am always restless in a strange bed the first night,'' explained
Miss Greene. {}``I daresay, too, I was a little excited.''

{}``I could have wished,'' said Mr.\ Korner, {}``it had been a
better example of the delightful art of the dramatist. When one goes
but seldom to the theatre--''

{}``One wants to enjoy oneself'' interrupted Mrs.\ Korner.

{}``I really do not think,'' said the bosom friend, {}``that I
have ever laughed so much in all my life.''

{}``It was amusing. I laughed myself,'' admitted Mr.\ Korner. {}``At
the same time I cannot help thinking that to treat drunkenness as
a theme--''

{}``He wasn't drunk,'' argued Mrs.\ Korner, {}``he was just jovial.''

{}``My dear!'' Mr.\ Korner Corrected her, {}``he simply couldn't
stand.''

{}``He was much more amusing than some people who can,'' retorted
Mrs. Korner.

{}``It is possible, my dear Aimee,'' her husband pointed out to
her, {}``for a man to be amusing without being drunk; also for a
man to be drunk without--''

{}``Oh, a man is all the better,'' declared Mrs.\ Korner, {}``for
letting himself go occasionally.''

{}``My dear--''

{}``You, Christopher, would be all the better for letting yourself
go--occasionally.''

{}``I wish,'' said Mr.\ Korner, as he passed his empty cup, {}``you
would not say things you do not mean. Anyone hearing you--''

{}``If there's one thing makes me more angry than another,'' said
Mrs. Korner, {}``it is being told I say things that I do not mean.''

{}``Why say them then?'' suggested Mr.\ Korner.

{}``I don't. I do--I mean I do mean them,'' explained Mrs.\ Korner.

{}``You can hardly mean, my dear,'' persisted her husband, {}``that
you really think I should be all the better for getting drunk--even
occasionally.''

{}``I didn't say drunk; I said `going it.'''

{}``But I do `go it' in moderation,'' pleaded Mr.\ Korner, {}``'Moderation
in all things,' that is my motto.''

{}``I know it,'' returned Mrs.\ Korner.

{}``A little of everything and nothing--'' this time Mr.\ Korner
interrupted himself. {}``I fear,'' said Mr.\ Korner, rising, {}``we
must postpone the further discussion of this interesting topic. If
you would not mind stepping out with me into the passage, dear, there
are one or two little matters connected with the house--''

Host and hostess squeezed past the visitor and closed the door behind
them. The visitor continued eating.

{}``I do mean it,'' repeated Mrs.\ Korner, for the third time, reseating
herself a minute later at the table. {}``I would give anything--anything,''
reiterated the lady recklessly, {}``to see Christopher more like
the ordinary sort of man.''

{}``But he has always been the sort--the sort of man he is,'' her
bosom friend reminded her.

{}``Oh, during the engagement, of course, one expects a man to be
perfect. I didn't think he was going to keep it up.''

{}``He seems to me,'' said Miss Greene, {}``a dear, good fellow.
You are one of those people who never know when they are well off.''

{}``I know he is a good fellow,'' agreed Mrs.\ Korner, {}``and
I am very fond of him. It is just because I am fond of him that I
hate feeling ashamed of him. I want him to be a manly man, to do the
things that other men do.''

{}``Do all the ordinary sort of men swear and get occasionally drunk?''

{}``Of course they do,'' asserted Mrs.\ Korner, in a tone of authority.
{}``One does not want a man to be a milksop.''

{}``Have you ever seen a drunken man?'' inquired the bosom friend,
who was nibbling sugar.

{}``Heaps,'' replied Mrs.\ Korner, who was sucking marmalade off
her fingers.

By which Mrs.\ Korner meant that some half a dozen times in her life
she had visited the play, choosing by preference the lighter form
of British drama. The first time she witnessed the real thing, which
happened just precisely a month later, long after the conversation
here recorded had been forgotten by the parties most concerned, no
one could have been more utterly astonished than was Mrs.\ Korner.

How it came about Mr.\ Korner was never able to fully satisfy himself.
Mr.\ Korner was not the type that serves the purpose of the temperance
lecturer. His {}``first glass'' he had drunk more years ago than
he could recollect, and since had tasted the varied contents of many
others. But never before had Mr.\ Korner exceeded, nor been tempted
to exceed, the limits of his favourite virtue, moderation.

{}``We had one bottle of claret between us,'' Mr.\ Korner would
often recall to his mind, {}``of which he drank the greater part.
And then he brought out the little green flask. He said it was made
from pears--that in Peru they kept it specially for Children's parties.
Of course, that may have been his joke; but in any case I cannot see
how just one glass--I wonder could I have taken more than one glass
while he was talking.'' It was a point that worried Mr.\ Korner.

The {}``he'' who had talked, possibly, to such bad effect was a
distant cousin of Mr.\ Korner's, one Bill Damon, chief mate of the
steamship \textit{La Fortuna}. Until their chance meeting that afternoon
in Leadenhall Street, they had not seen each other since they were
boys together. The \textit{Fortuna} was leaving St.\ Katherine's Docks
early the next morning bound for South America, and it might be years
before they met again. As Mr.\ Damon pointed out, Fate, by thus throwing
them into each other's arms, clearly intended they should have a cosy
dinner together that very evening in the captain's cabin of the \textit{Fortuna}.

Mr.\ Korner, returning to the office, despatched to Ravenscourt Park
an express letter, announcing the strange news that he might not be
home that evening much before ten, and at half-past six, for the first
time since his marriage, directed his steps away from home and Mrs.\ Korner.

The two friends talked of many things. And later on they spoke of
sweethearts and of wives. Mate Damon's experiences had apparently
been wide and varied. They talked--or, rather, the mate talked, and
Mr.\ Korner listened--of the olive-tinted beauties of the Spanish
Main, of the dark-eyed passionate creoles, of the blond Junos of the
Californian valleys. The mate had theories concerning the care and
management of women: theories that, if the mate's word could be relied
upon, had stood the test of studied application. A new world opened
out to Mr.\ Korner; a world where lovely women worshipped with doglike
devotion men who, though loving them in return, knew how to be their
masters. Mr.\ Korner, warmed gradually from cold disapproval to bubbling
appreciation, sat entranced. Time alone set a limit to the recital
of the mate's adventures. At eleven o'clock the cook reminded them
that the captain and the pilot might be aboard at any moment. Mr.\ Korner,
surprised at the lateness of the hour, took a long and tender farewell
of his cousin, and found St.\ Katherine's Docks one of the most bewildering
places out of which he had ever tried to escape. Under a lamp-post
in the Minories, it suddenly occurred to Mr.\ Korner that he was an
unappreciated man. Mrs.\ Korner never said and did the sort of things
by means of which the beauties of the Southern Main endeavoured feebly
to express their consuming passion for gentlemen superior in no way--as
far as he could see--to Mr.\ Korner himself. Thinking over the sort
of things Mrs.\ Korner did say and did do, tears sprung into Mr.\ Korner's
eyes. Noticing that a policeman was eyeing him with curiosity, he
dashed them aside and hurried on. Pacing the platform of the Mansion
House Station, where it is always draughty, the thought of his wrongs
returned to him with renewed force. Why was there no trace of doglike
devotion about Mrs.\ Korner? The fault--so he bitterly told himself--the
fault was his. {}``A woman loves her master; it is her instinct,''
mused Mr.\ Korner to himself. {}``Damme,'' thought Mr.\ Korner,
{}``I don't believe that half her time she knows I am her master.''

{}``Go away,'' said Mr.\ Korner to a youth of pasty appearance who,
with open mouth, had stopped immediately in front of him.

{}``I'm fond o' listening,'' explained the pasty youth.

{}``Who's talking?'' demanded Mr.\ Korner.

{}``You are,'' replied the pasty youth.

It is a long journey from the city to Ravenscourt Park, but the task
of planning out the future life of Mrs.\ Korner and himself kept Mr.
Korner wide awake and interested. When he got out of the train the
thing chiefly troubling him was the three-quarters of a mile of muddy
road stretching between him and his determination to make things clear
to Mrs.\ Korner then and there.

The sight of Acacia Villa, suggesting that everybody was in bed and
asleep, served to further irritate him. A dog-like wife would have
been sitting up to see if there was anything he wanted. Mr.\ Korner,
acting on the advice of his own brass plate, not only knocked but
also rang. As the door did not immediately fly open, he continued
to knock and ring. The window of the best bedroom on the first floor
opened.

{}``Is that you?'' said the voice of Mrs.\ Korner. There was, as
it happened, a distinct suggestion of passion in Mrs.\ Korner's voice,
but not of the passion Mr.\ Korner was wishful to inspire. It made
him a little more angry than he was before.

{}``Don't you talk to me with your head out of the window as if this
were a gallanty show. You come down and open the door,'' commanded
Mr. Korner.

{}``Haven't you got your latchkey?'' demanded Mrs.\ Korner.

For answer Mr.\ Korner attacked the door again. The window closed.
The next moment but six or seven, the door was opened with such suddenness
that Mr.\ Korner, still gripping the knocker, was borne inward in
a flying attitude. Mrs.\ Korner had descended the stairs ready with
a few remarks. She had not anticipated that Mr.\ Korner, usually slow
of speech, could be even readier.

{}``Where's my supper?'' indignantly demanded Mr.\ Korner, still
supported by the knocker.

Mrs.\ Korner, too astonished for words, simply stared.

{}``Where's my supper?'' repeated Mr.\ Korner, by this time worked
up into genuine astonishment that it was not ready for him. {}``What's
everybody mean, going off to bed, when the masterororous hasn't had
his supper?''

{}``Is anything the matter, dear?'' was heard the voice of Miss
Greene, speaking from the neighbourhood of the first landing.

{}``Come in, Christopher,'' pleaded Mrs.\ Korner, {}``please come
in, and let me shut the door.''

Mrs.\ Korner was the type of young lady fond of domineering with a
not un-graceful hauteur over those accustomed to yield readily to
her; it is a type that is easily frightened.

{}``I wan' grilled kinneys-on-toast,'' explained Mr.\ Korner, exchanging
the knocker for the hat-stand, and wishing the next moment that he
had not. {}``Don' let's `avareytalk about it. Unnerstan'? I dowan'
any talk about it.''

{}``What on earth am I to do?'' whispered the terrified Mrs.\ Korner
to her bosom friend, {}``there isn't a kidney in the house.''

{}``I should poach him a couple of eggs,'' suggested the helpful
bosom friend; {}``put plenty of Cayenne pepper on them. Very likely
he won't remember.''

Mr.\ Korner allowed himself to be persuaded into the dining-room,
which was also the breakfast parlour and the library. The two ladies,
joined by the hastily clad staff, whose chronic indignation seemed
to have vanished in face of the first excuse for it that Acacia Villa
had afforded her, made haste to light the kitchen fire.

{}``I should never have believed it,'' whispered the white-faced
Mrs. Korner, {}``never.''

{}``Makes yer know there's a man about the 'ouse, don't it?'' chirped
the delighted staff. Mrs.\ Korner, for answer, boxed the girl's ears;
it relieved her feelings to a slight extent.

The staff retained its equanimity, but the operations of Mrs.\ Korner
and her bosom friend were retarded rather than assisted by the voice
of Mr.\ Korner, heard every quarter of a minute, roaring out fresh
directions.

{}``I dare not go in alone,'' said Mrs.\ Korner, when all things
were in order on the tray. So the bosom friend followed her, and the
staff brought up the rear.

{}``What's this?'' frowned Mr.\ Korner. {}``I told you chops.''

{}``I'm so sorry, dear,'' faltered Mrs.\ Korner, {}``but there
weren't any in the house.''

{}``In a perfectly organizedouse, such as for the future I meanterave,''
continued Mr.\ Korner, helping himself to beer, {}``there should
always be chopanteak. Unnerstanme? chopanteak!''

{}``I'll try and remember, dear,'' said Mrs.\ Korner.

{}``Pearsterme,'' said Mr.\ Korner, between mouthfuls, {}``you're
norrer sort of housekeeper I want.''

{}``I'll try to be, dear,'' pleaded Mrs.\ Korner.

{}``Where's your books?'' Mr.\ Korner suddenly demanded.

{}``My books?'' repeated Mrs.\ Korner, in astonishment.

Mr.\ Korner struck the corner of the table with his fist, which made
most things in the room, including Mrs.\ Korner, jump.

{}``Don't you defy me, my girl,'' said Mr.\ Korner. {}``You know
whatermean, your housekeepin' books.''

They happened to be in the drawer of the chiffonier. Mrs.\ Korner
produced them, and passed them to her husband with a trembling hand.
Mr.\ Korner, opening one by hazard, bent over it with knitted brows.

{}``Pearsterme, my girl, you can't add,'' said Mr.\ Korner.

{}``I--I was always considered rather good at arithmetic, as a girl,''
stammered Mrs.\ Korner.

{}``What you mayabeen as a girl, and what--twenner-seven and nine?''
fiercely questioned Mr.\ Korner.

{}``Thirty-eight--seven,'' commenced to blunder the terrified Mrs.\ Korner.

{}``Know your nine tables or don't you?'' thundered Mr.\ Korner.

{}``I used to,'' sobbed Mrs.\ Korner.

{}``Say it,'' commanded Mr.\ Korner.

{}``Nine times one are nine,'' sobbed the poor little woman, {}``nine
times two--''

{}``Goron,'' said Mr.\ Korner sternly.

She went on steadily, in a low monotone, broken by stifled sobs. The
dreary rhythm of the repetition may possibly have assisted. As she
mentioned fearfully that nine times eleven were ninety-nine, Miss
Greene pointed stealthily toward the table. Mrs.\ Korner, glancing
up fearfully, saw that the eyes of her lord and master were closed;
heard the rising snore that issued from his head, resting between
the empty beer-jug and the cruet stand.

{}``He will be all right,'' counselled Miss Greene. {}``You go
to bed and lock yourself in. Harriet and I will see to his breakfast
in the morning. It will be just as well for you to be out of the way.''

And Mrs.\ Korner, only too thankful for some one to tell her what
to do, obeyed in all things.

Toward seven o'clock the sunlight streaming into the room caused Mr.
Korner first to blink, then yawn, then open half an eye.

{}``Greet the day with a smile,'' murmured Mr.\ Korner, sleepily,
{}``and it will--''

Mr.\ Korner sat up suddenly and looked about him. This was not bed.
The fragments of a jug and glass lay scattered round his feet. To
the tablecloth an overturned cruet-stand mingled with egg gave colour.
A tingling sensation about his head called for investigation. Mr.
Korner was forced to the conclusion that somebody had been trying
to make a salad of him--somebody with an exceptionally heavy hand
for mustard. A sound directed Mr.\ Korner's attention to the door.

The face of Miss Greene, portentously grave, was peeping through the
jar.

Mr.\ Korner rose. Miss Greene entered stealthily, and, closing the
door, stood with her back against it.

{}``I suppose you know what--what you've done?'' suggested Miss
Greene,

She spoke in a sepulchral tone; it chilled poor Mr.\ Korner to the
bone.

{}``It is beginning to come back to me, but not--not very clearly,''
admitted Mr.\ Korner.

{}``You came home drunk--very drunk,'' Miss Greene informed him,
{}``at two o'clock in the morning. The noise you made must have awakened
half the street.''

A groan escaped from his parched lips.

{}``You insisted upon Aimee cooking you a hot supper.''

{}``I insisted!'' Mr.\ Korner glanced down upon the table. {}``And--and
she did it!''

{}``You were very violent,'' explained Miss Greene; {}``we were
terrified at you, all three of us.'' Regarding the pathetic object
in front of her, Miss Greene found it difficult to recollect that
a few hours before she really had been frightened of it. Sense of
duty alone restrained her present inclination to laugh.

{}``While you sat there, eating your supper,'' continued Miss Greene
remorselessly, {}``you made her bring you her books.''

Mr.\ Korner had passed the stage when anything could astonish him.

{}``You lectured her about her housekeeping.'' There was a twinkle
in the eye of Mrs.\ Korner's bosom friend. But lightning could have
flashed before Mr.\ Korner's eyes without his noticing it just then.

{}``You told her that she could not add, and you made her say her
tables.''

{}``I made her--'' Mr.\ Korner spoke in the emotionless tones of
one merely desiring information. {}``I made Aimee say her tables?''

{}``Her nine times,'' nodded Miss Greene.

Mr.\ Korner sat down upon his chair and stared with stony eyes into
the future.

{}``What's to be done?'' said Mr.\ Korner, {}``she'll never forgive
me; I know her. You are not chaffing me?'' he cried with a momentary
gleam of hope. {}``I really did it?''

{}``You sat in that very chair where you are sitting now and ate
poached eggs, while she stood opposite to you and said her nine times
table. At the end of it, seeing you had gone to sleep yourself, I
persuaded her to go to bed. It was three o'clock, and we thought you
would not mind.'' Miss Greene drew up a chair, and, with her elbows
on the table, looked across at Mr.\ Korner. Decidedly there was a
twinkle in the eyes of Mrs.\ Korner's bosom friend.

{}``You'll never do it again,'' suggested Miss Greene.

{}``Do you think it possible,'' cried Mr.\ Korner, {}``that she
may forgive me?''

{}``No, I don't,'' replied Miss Greene. At which Mr.\ Korner's face
fell back to zero. {}``I think the best way out will be for you to
forgive her.''

The idea did not even amuse him. Miss Greene glanced round to satisfy
herself that the door was still closed, and listened a moment to assure
herself of the silence.

{}``Don't you remember,'' Miss Greene took the extra precaution
to whisper it, {}``the talk we had at breakfast-time the first morning
of my visit, when Aimee said you would be all the better for `going
it' occasionally?''

Yes, slowly it came back to Mr.\ Korner. But she only said {}``going
it,'' Mr.\ Korner recollected to his dismay.

{}``Well, you've been `going it,''' persisted Miss Greene. {}``Besides,
she did not mean `going it.' She meant the real thing, only she did
not like to say the word. We talked about it after you had gone. She
said she would give anything to see you more like the ordinary man.
And that is her idea of the ordinary man.''

Mr.\ Korner's sluggishness of comprehension irritated Miss Greene.
She leaned across the table and shook him. {}``Don't you understand?
You have done it on purpose to teach her a lesson. It is she who has
got to ask you to forgive her.''

{}``You think--?''

{}``I think, if you manage it properly, it will be the best day's
work you have ever done. Get out of the house before she wakes. I
shall say nothing to her. Indeed, I shall not have the time; I must
catch the ten o'clock from Paddington. When you come home this evening,
you talk first; that's what you've got to do.'' And Mr.\ Korner,
in his excitement, kissed the bosom friend before he knew what he
had done.

Mrs.\ Korner sat waiting for her husband that evening in the drawing-room.
She was dressed as for a journey, and about the corners of her mouth
were lines familiar to Christopher, the sight of which sent his heart
into his boots. Fortunately, he recovered himself in time to greet
her with a smile. It was not the smile he had been rehearsing half
the day, but that it was a smile of any sort astonished the words
away from Mrs.\ Korner's lips, and gave him the inestimable advantage
of first speech.

{}``Well,'' said Mr.\ Korner cheerily, {}``and how did you like
it?''

For the moment Mrs.\ Korner feared her husband's new complaint had
already reached the chronic stage, but his still smiling face reassured
her--to that extent at all events.

{}``When would you like me to `go it' again? Oh, come,'' continued
Mr. Korner in response to his wife's bewilderment, {}``you surely
have not forgotten the talk we had at breakfast-time--the first morning
of Mildred's visit. You hinted how much more attractive I should be
for occasionally `letting myself go!'''

Mr.\ Korner, watching intently, perceived that upon Mrs.\ Korner recollection
was slowly forcing itself.

{}``I was unable to oblige you before,'' explained Mr.\ Korner,
{}``having to keep my head clear for business, and not knowing what
the effect upon one might be. Yesterday I did my best, and I hope
you are pleased with me. Though, if you could see your way to being
content--just for the present and until I get more used to it--with
a similar performance not oftener than once a fortnight, say, I should
be grateful,'' added Mr.\ Korner.

{}``You mean--'' said Mrs.\ Korner, rising.

{}``I mean, my dear,'' said Mr.\ Korner, {}``that almost from the
day of our marriage you have made it clear that you regard me as a
milksop. You have got your notion of men from silly books and sillier
plays, and your trouble is that I am not like them. Well, I've shown
you that, if you insist upon it, I can be like them.''

{}``But you weren't,'' argued Mrs.\ Korner, {}``not a bit like
them.''

{}``I did my best,'' repeated Mr.\ Korner; {}``we are not all made
alike. That was \textit{my} drunk.''

{}``I didn't say `drunk.'''

{}``But you meant it,'' interrupted Mr.\ Korner. {}``We were talking
about drunken men. The man in the play was drunk. You thought him
amusing.''

{}``He was amusing,'' persisted Mrs.\ Korner, now in tears. {}``I
meant that sort of drunk.''

{}``His wife,'' Mr.\ Korner reminded her, {}``didn't find him amusing.
In the third act she was threatening to return home to her mother,
which, if I may judge from finding you here with all your clothes
on, is also the idea that has occurred to you.''

{}``But you--you were so awful,'' whimpered Mrs.\ Korner.

{}``What did I do?'' questioned Mr.\ Korner.

{}``You came hammering at the door--''

{}``Yes, yes, I remember that. I wanted my supper, and you poached
me a couple of eggs. What happened after that?''

The recollection of that crowning indignity lent to her voice the
true note of tragedy.

{}``You made me say my tables--my nine times!''

Mr.\ Korner looked at Mrs.\ Korner, and Mrs.\ Korner looked at Mr.
Korner, and for a while there was silence.

{}``Were you--were you really a little bit on,'' faltered Mrs.\ Korner,
{}``or only pretending?''

{}``Really,'' confessed Mr.\ Korner. {}``For the first time in
my life. If you are content, for the last time also.''

{}``I am sorry,'' said Mrs.\ Korner, {}``I have been very silly.
Please forgive me.''
\end{document}
