That George should collect the tea-things together on the tray, and brush and fold the cloth, and carry the loaded tray downstairs into the scullery, was sufficiently¹ strange. But it was very much more strange that he should have actually had the idea of washing-up the tea-things himself. In his time, in the domestic crises of Bursley, he had boyishly helped ladies to wash-up, and he reckoned that he knew all about the operation. There he stood, between the kitchen and the scullery, elegantly attired³, with an inquiring eye upon the kettle of warm water on the stove, debating whether he should make the decisive gesture of emptying the kettle into the large tin receptacle that lay on the slop-stone. Such was the miraculous⁴ effect on him of Mrs. Haim's simplicity⁵, her weakness, and her predicament. Mrs. Haim was a different woman for him now that he had carried her upstairs and laid her all limp and girlish on the solemn conjugal⁶ bed! He felt quite sure that old Haim was incapable⁷ of washing-up. He assuredly did not want to be caught in the act of washing-up, but he did want to be able to say in his elaborately nonchalant manner, answering a question about the disappearance⁹ of the tea-things: "I thought I might as well wash-up while I was about it." And he did want Mrs. Haim to be put in a flutter by the news that Mr. George Cannon¹⁰ had washed-up for her. The affair would positively¹¹ cause a sensation.