Mrs Korner Sins Her Mercies | Page 2

"one of these days--"
"How did you sleep, dear? I forgot to ask you," questioned Mrs. Korner
of the bosom friend.
"I am always restless in a strange bed the first night," explained Miss
Greene. "I daresay, too, I was a little excited."
"I could have wished," said Mr. Korner, "it had been a better example
of the delightful art of the dramatist. When one goes but seldom to the
theatre--"
"One wants to enjoy oneself" interrupted Mrs. Korner.
"I really do not think," said the bosom friend, "that I have ever laughed
so much in all my life."
"It was amusing. I laughed myself," admitted Mr. Korner. "At the same
time I cannot help thinking that to treat drunkenness as a theme--"
"He wasn't drunk," argued Mrs. Korner, "he was just jovial."
"My dear!" Mr. Korner Corrected her, "he simply couldn't stand."
"He was much more amusing than some people who can," retorted Mrs.
Korner.
"It is possible, my dear Aimee," her husband pointed out to her, "for a
man to be amusing without being drunk; also for a man to be drunk
without--"

"Oh, a man is all the better," declared Mrs. Korner, "for letting himself
go occasionally."
"My dear--"
"You, Christopher, would be all the better for letting yourself
go--occasionally."
"I wish," said Mr. Korner, as he passed his empty cup, "you would not
say things you do not mean. Anyone hearing you--"
"If there's one thing makes me more angry than another," said Mrs.
Korner, "it is being told I say things that I do not mean."
"Why say them then?" suggested Mr. Korner.
"I don't. I do--I mean I do mean them," explained Mrs. Korner.
"You can hardly mean, my dear," persisted her husband, "that you
really think I should be all the better for getting drunk--even
occasionally."
"I didn't say drunk; I said 'going it.'"
"But I do 'go it' in moderation," pleaded Mr. Korner, "'Moderation in all
things,' that is my motto."
"I know it," returned Mrs. Korner.
"A little of everything and nothing--" this time Mr. Korner interrupted
himself. "I fear," said Mr. Korner, rising, "we must postpone the further
discussion of this interesting topic. If you would not mind stepping out
with me into the passage, dear, there are one or two little matters
connected with the house--"
Host and hostess squeezed past the visitor and closed the door behind
them. The visitor continued eating.
"I do mean it," repeated Mrs. Korner, for the third time, reseating

herself a minute later at the table. "I would give anything--anything,"
reiterated the lady recklessly, "to see Christopher more like the
ordinary sort of man."
"But he has always been the sort--the sort of man he is," her bosom
friend reminded her.
"Oh, during the engagement, of course, one expects a man to be perfect.
I didn't think he was going to keep it up."
"He seems to me," said Miss Greene, "a dear, good fellow. You are one
of those people who never know when they are well off."
"I know he is a good fellow," agreed Mrs. Korner, "and I am very fond
of him. It is just because I am fond of him that I hate feeling ashamed
of him. I want him to be a manly man, to do the things that other men
do."
"Do all the ordinary sort of men swear and get occasionally drunk?"
"Of course they do," asserted Mrs. Korner, in a tone of authority. "One
does not want a man to be a milksop."
"Have you ever seen a drunken man?" inquired the bosom friend, who
was nibbling sugar.
"Heaps," replied Mrs. Korner, who was sucking marmalade off her
fingers.
By which Mrs. Korner meant that some half a dozen times in her life
she had visited the play, choosing by preference the lighter form of
British drama. The first time she witnessed the real thing, which
happened just precisely a month later, long after the conversation here
recorded had been forgotten by the parties most concerned, no one
could have been more utterly astonished than was Mrs. Korner.
How it came about Mr. Korner was never able to fully satisfy himself.
Mr. Korner was not the type that serves the purpose of the temperance

lecturer. His "first glass" he had drunk more years ago than he could
recollect, and since had tasted the varied contents of many others. But
never before had Mr. Korner exceeded, nor been tempted to exceed, the
limits of his favourite virtue, moderation.
"We had one bottle of claret between us," Mr. Korner would often
recall to his mind, "of which he drank the greater part. And then he
brought out the little green flask. He said it was made from pears--that
in Peru they kept it specially for Children's parties. Of course,