sterling, for assuredly no plate could ever have survived the polishings it received; and as for my feather dusters, they must have been made from the plumage of Mother Carey’s chickens, so incessantly were they on the wing. I said to myself, with vast satisfaction, that Galvin was a paragon. When I discovered — by degrees, as shall you — how many sides she had, I perceived that “octagon” was the word I should have used.
Thus far, I had experienced none of the actual cares of housekeeping — nor, to be frank, did I wish or expect to. I had no desire, for example, to have a hand in the marketing. I am as quick as another to take a hint. It was not for nothing that I had read innumerable paragraphs in the humourous weeklies, having to do with the inexperienced one who orders two yards of French chops or a pound of eggs, and I had no mind to present myself as a figure of fun to my grocer and my butcher. Not for three weeks was I even
