But this is only one of Williams' attractive little ways. His outstanding trait is his inability to put on sufficient coal to keep the house warm. It is a temperamental deficiency. Neither threats, nor persuasions, nor yet appeals, can move him—at least to a permanent reformation. If I try peremptorily ordering him to fill the furnace up, he complies with much ostentatious banging, and the air of one who says, "Very well then, have it your own way and see how like it!"
That wouldn't matter, of course, if only he'd keep on filling and banging, but his extra exertions last only as long as his resentment. Ingrained nature and habit combined are too strong for him, and in another round or two of the clock, we are back at the same old pace, drafts low, furnace clogged, rooms chilly. The path of least resistance (which is a well-beaten one for modern housekeepers) is to work on Janet's feelings, or go down myself, in the absence of pater familias, who nearly always is absent, of course, after his kind.
On Sundays Williams is a changed being. He wears a leisurely, not to say absent air, an approximation to cleanliness and a carnation in his buttonhole. The latter has an absent air
