ness. It only hurt when she made importunate demands upon his time which he could not by any means grant, but even then he reproached himself—never her; it was only when, with a saucy pout and an impish toss of her pretty head, she intimated that she always found at the club plenty of men perfectly willing to act as her escort, companion, or partner, in case her husband did not find time to do this, that George lost his temper.
"Confound those loafers," he complained. "A job is what they need, I tell you. Fay, every man ought to be compelled to do a certain amount of productive work every day of his life—ought to have some job that claims him. These fellows wear good clothes, and they have good manners, and they're darned fine fellows, but I tell you they're nothing more than hoboes."
Fay, admiring George always when he was flaming—and not directly at her—was greatly amused by this outburst. With a savage growl and then a quick, penitent kiss he turned from his wife and her after-breakfast chatter, and, as he set out for the works, all thought of her drifted from his mind, for just now the mad project of the Nemo model in its second year hung like a millstone about his neck.
That it was mad, an array of figures compiled by Percy Mock succeeded this very day in convincing him. And yet George took it so
