He repeated aloud with blasphemies unusual to him that
he would stand it no longer.
He was a pale-faced little man, with dark eyes and a fine and very black
moustache. He had a very stiff, upright collar slightly frayed, that gave
him an illusory double chin, and his overcoat (albeit shabby) was trimmed
with astrachan. His gloves were a bright brown with black stripes over the
knuckles, and split at the finger ends. His appearance, his wife had said
once in the dear, dead days beyond recall--before he married her, that
is--was military. But now she called him--it seems a dreadful thing to
tell of between husband and wife, but she called him "a little grub." It
wasn't the only thing she had called him, either.
The row had arisen about that beastly Jennie again. Jennie was his wife's
friend, and, by no invitation of Mr. Coombes, she came in every blessed
Sunday to dinner, and made a shindy all the afternoon. She was a big,
noisy girl, with a taste for loud colours and a strident laugh; and this
Sunday she had outdone all her previous intrusions by bringing in a fellow
with her, a chap as showy as herself.
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