ANGEL    PAVEMENT
"Just you go upstairs and tidy yourself up/* cried her
mother. "Dinner will be ready in a minute and the face
you've got now isn't fit to be seen at a table. It would
put us off our food. And don't start telling me you
don't want any dinner, just because you've got sacked.
Get along upstairs and don't keep us waiting all night
when you do get up."
"What's all this about?" Mr. Smeeth asked, with the
quiet despair of a man who has known something like
it happen before, and not a few times before. He put
on that look familiar to all wives, who are left wonder-
ing why men should imagine that domestic life, unlike
any other kind of life, ought really to be entirely lacking
in disturbing events,
"Look at me with this saucepan in my hand/' cried
Mrs. Smeeth, laughing at herself. "Just you sit down
and keep calm, and I'll have dinner on the table in a
minute, though what it'll be like, Lord only knows, the
way I've been badgered and rushed."
Left to himself, Mr. Smeeth came to the conclusion
once again that his wife was to be envied. She made a
great fuss, far more noise than he ever did, but she
didn't really dislike these disturbances and strokes of
bad luck, Any sort of happening, even an apparent mis-
fortune, braced her up and left her really enjoying it.
What she didn't like was a quiet life, the same thing day
after day.
She came in now like a savoury whirlwind. "Draw
up, Dad. We won't wait for Edna. She'll be down in
a minute* Help yourself to that stew and take plenty
of it because the meat's nearly all bone. Dig down
and you'll get the barley, and that'll do your old inside
good."