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“If you can’t have the brokers in, get somebody to pretend to be one,” she said, sharply; “that would prevent him pawning any more things, at any rate. Why wouldn’t he do?” she added, nodding at her uncle.

Anxiety on Mrs. Cox’s face was exaggerated on that of Mr. Piper.

“Let uncle pretend to be a broker’s man in for the rent,” continued the excitable lady, rapidly. “When Mr. Cox turns up after his spree, tell him what his doings have brought you to, and say you’ll have to go to the workhouse.”

“I look like a broker’s man, don’t I?” said Mr. Piper, in a voice more than tinged with sarcasm.

“Yes,” said his niece, “that’s what put it into my head.”

“It’s very kind of you, dear, and very kind of Mr. Piper,” said Mrs. Cox, “but I couldn’t think of it, I really couldn’t.”

“Uncle would be delighted,” said Mrs. Berry, with a wilful blinking of plain facts. “He’s got nothing better to do; it’s a nice house and good food, and he could sit at the open window and sniff at the sea all day long.”

Mr. Piper sniffed even as she spoke, but not at the sea.

“And I’ll come for him the day after to-morrow,” said Mrs. Berry.

It was the old story of the stronger will: Mrs. Cox after a feeble stand gave way altogether, and Mr. Piper’s objections were demolished before he had given them full utterance. Mrs. Berry went off alone after dinner, secretly glad to have got rid of Mr. Piper, who was making a self-invited stay at her house of indefinite duration; and Mr. Piper, in his new role of broker’s man, essayed the part with as much help as a clay pipe and a pint of beer could afford him.

That day and the following he spent amid the faded grandeurs of the drawing-room, gazing longingly at the wide expanse of beach and the tumbling sea beyond. The house was almost uncanily quiet, an occasional tinkle of metal or crash of china from the basement giving the only indication of the industrious Mrs. Cox; but on the day after the quiet of the house was broken by the return of its master, whose annoyance, when he found the drawing-room clock stolen and a man in possession, was alarming in its vehemence. He lectured his wife severely on her mismanagement, and after some hesitation announced his intention of going through her books. Mrs. Cox gave them to him, and, armed with pen and ink and four square inches of pink blotting-paper, he performed feats of balancing which made him a very Blondin of finance.

“I shall have to get something to do,” he said, gloomily, laying down his pen.

“Yes, dear,” said his wife.

Mr. Cox leaned back in his chair and, wiping his pen on the blotting-paper, gazed in a speculative fashion round the room. “Have you any money?” he inquired.

For reply his wife rummaged in her pocket and after a lengthy search produced a bunch of keys, a thimble, a needle-case, two pocket-handkerchiefs, and a halfpenny. She put this last on the table, and Mr. Cox, whose temper had been mounting steadily, threw it to the other end of the room.

“I can’t help it,” said Mrs. Cox, wiping her eyes. “I’m sure I’ve done all I could to keep a home together. I can’t even raise money on anything.”

Mr. Cox, who had been glancing round the room again, looked up sharply.

“Why not?” he inquired.

“The broker’s man,” said Mrs. Cox, nervously; “he’s made an inventory of everything, and he holds us responsible.”

Mr. Cox leaned back in his chair. “This is a pretty state of things,” he blurted, wildly. “Here have I been walking my legs off looking for work, any work so long as it’s honest labour, and I come back to find a broker’s man sitting in my own house and drinking up my beer.”

He rose and walked up and down the room, and Mrs. Cox, whose nerves were hardly equal to the occasion, slipped on her bonnet and announced her intention of trying to obtain a few necessaries on credit. Her husband waited in indignant silence until he heard the front door close behind her, and then stole softly upstairs to have a look at the fell destroyer of his domestic happiness.