The silence was appalling.
"Sorry to be a little behindhand, Ketury," stammered Asaph hurriedly.
"Town affairs are important, of course, and can't be neglected.

I--" "Yes, yes; that's so, Ketury," cut in Mr.Bangs.
"You see--" "Hum! Yes, I see." Keturah's tone was several degrees below freezing.
"Hum! I s'pose 'twas town affairs kept you, too, hey ?" "Well, well--er--not exactly, as you might say, but--" Bailey squeezed himself into the armchair at the end of the table opposite his wife, the end which, with sarcasm not the less keen for being unintentional, was called the "head." "Not exactly town affairs, 'twan't that kept me, Ketury, but--My! don't them cod cheeks smell good?
You always could cook cod cheeks, if I do say it." The compliment was wasted.

Mrs.Bangs had a sermon to deliver, and its text was not "cod cheeks." "Bailey Bangs," she began, "when I was brought to realize that my husband, although apparently an able-bodied man, couldn't support me as I'd been used to be supported, and when I was forced to support HIM by keepin' boarders, I says, 'If there's one thing that my house shall stand for it's punctual promptness at meal times.

I say nothing,' I says, 'about the inconvenience of gettin' on with only one hired help when we ought to have three.

If Providence, in its unscrutable wisdom,' I says, 'has seen fit to lay this burden onto me, the burden of a household of boarders and a husband whom--'" And just then the power referred to by Mrs.Bangs intervened to spare her husband the remainder of the preachment.