Good man."
He shook his head again and gazed mistily at his wife.
"He was a teetotaller," she remarked, casually.
"He was tee-toiler," repeated Mr. Gribble, regarding her equably. "Good
man. Uncle George dead-tee-toller."
Mrs. Gribble gathered up her work and began to put it away.
"Bed-time," said Mr. Gribble, and led the way upstairs, singing.
His good-humour had evaporated by the morning, and, having made a light
breakfast of five cups of tea, he went off, with lagging steps, to work.
It was a beautiful spring morning, and the idea of a man with two
hundred a year and a headache going off to a warehouse instead of a
day's outing seemed to border upon the absurd. What use was money
without freedom? His toil was sweetened that day by the knowledge that
he could drop it any time he liked and walk out, a free man, into the
sunlight.
By the end of a week his mind was made up. Each day that passed made
his hurried uprising and scrambled breakfast more and more irksome; and
on Monday morning, with hands in trouser-pockets and legs stretched out,
he leaned back in his chair and received his wife's alarming intimations
as to the flight of time with a superior and sphinx-like smile.
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