“If we could borrow money, Alfred⁠—”

“Beg money, borrow money, or steal money. It would be all one to us, Sophronia,” her husband struck in.

“⁠—Then, we could weather this?”

“No doubt. To offer another original and undeniable remark, Sophronia, two and two make four.”

But, seeing that she was turning something in her mind, he gathered up the skirts of his dressing-gown again, and, tucking them under one arm, and collecting his ample whiskers in his other hand, kept his eye upon her, silently.

“It is natural, Alfred,” she said, looking up with some timidity into his face, “to think in such an emergency of the richest people we know, and the simplest.”

“Just so, Sophronia.”

“The Boffins.”