‘Who’s Simon Fuge?’ asked Mrs Brindley.

‘Don’t you remember old Fuge that kept the Blue Bell at Cauldon?’

‘What?  Simple Simon?’

‘Yes.  Well, his son.’

’Oh!  I remember.  He ran away from home once, didn’t he, and his mother had a port-wine stain on her left cheek?  Oh, of course.  I remember him perfectly.  He came down to the Five Towns some years ago for his aunt’s funeral.  So he’s dead.  Who told you?’

‘Mr Loring.’

‘Did you know him?’ she glanced at me.

‘I scarcely knew him,’ said I.  ‘I saw it in the paper.’

‘What, the Signal?’

‘The Signal’s the local rag,’ Mr Brindley interpolated.  ’No.  It’s in the Gazette.’

‘The Birmingham Gazette?’

‘No, bright creature—­the Gazette,’ said Mr Brindley.

‘Oh!’ She seemed puzzled.

‘Didn’t you know he was a painter?’ the husband condescendingly catechized.

‘I knew he used to teach at the Hanbridge School of Art,’ said Mrs Brindley stoutly.  ’Mother wouldn’t let me go there because of that.  Then he got the sack.’

‘Poor defenceless thing!  How old were you?’

‘Seventeen, I expect.’

‘I’m much obliged to your mother.’

‘Where did he die?’ Mrs Brindley demanded.

‘At San Remo,’ I answered.  ’Seems queer him dying at San Remo in September, doesn’t it?’

‘Why?’

’San Remo is a winter place.  No one ever goes there before December.’

‘Oh, is it?’ the lady murmured negligently.  ’Then that would be just like Simon Fuge. I was never afraid of him,’ she added, in a defiant tone, and with a delicious inconsequence that choked her husband in the midst of a draught of beer.

‘You can laugh,’ she said sturdily.

At that moment there was heard a series of loud explosive sounds in the street.  They continued for a few seconds apparently just outside the dining-room window.  Then they stopped, and the noise of the bumping electric cars resumed its sway over the ear.

‘That’s Oliver!’ said Mr Brindley, looking at his watch.  ’He must have come from Manchester in an hour and a half.  He’s a terror.’

‘Glass!  Quick!’ Mrs Brindley exclaimed.  She sprang to the sideboard, and seized a tumbler, which Mr Brindley filled from a second bottle of Bass.  When the door of the room opened she was standing close to it, laughing, with the full, frothing glass in her hand.

A tall, thin man, rather younger than Mr Brindley and his wife, entered.  He wore a long dust-coat and leggings, and he carried a motorist’s cap in a great hand.  No one spoke; but little puffs of laughter escaped all Mrs Brindley’s efforts to imprison her mirth.  Then the visitor took the glass with a magnificent broad smile, and said, in a rich and heavy Midland voice—­

‘Here’s to moy wife’s husband!’

And drained the nectar.