We hastened to make sympathetic inquiries. Our solicitude seemed to please him. He brightened a little. 'Well, gentlemen,' he said, 'I had not intended to intrude my private troubles on this happy gathering, but, if you must know, a young second cousin of mine has left his wife and is filing papers of divorce. It has upset me very much.' Miss Postlethwaite, our warm-hearted barmaid, who was polishing glasses, introduced a sort of bedside manner into her task. 'Some viper crept into his home?' she asked. Mr Mulliner shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'No vipers. The whole trouble appears to have been that, whenever my second cousin spoke to his wife, she would open her eyes to their fullest extent, put her head on one side like a canary, and say ''What?'' He said he had stood it for eleven months and three days, which he believes to be a European record, and that the time had now come, in his opinion, to take steps.' 'The fact of the matter is,' he said, 'marriage to-day is made much too simple for a man.
