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Rh luctantly embrace it, feeling a sense of guilty weakness because I haven't lived up to Janet's more than hinted expectations and compelled Williams to disgorge.

There are other feuds, sudsidiarysubsidiary [sic] ones, which I suspect Williams of intentionally fostering as a form of entertainment that comes cheaper even than the movies. One revolves around the subject of a washing-machine he foisted on us against our weak, feminine wills, but I decline to go into particulars. They are too humiliating.

Why do we retain his services? A not unnatural question. I ask it of myself several times a year. I am forced to the conviction that is because of Janet's irresolution. If she once definitely made up her mind to his dismissal, I'm sure I should give in. I have thought of dismissing him myself. In fact I have decided more than once that it must be done, but this is generally in mid-winter when suffering from the consequence of his low fires, and of course, it would be madness to change your furnace-man in mid-winter. It has to be done in the spring.

But in the spring you say to yourself, "Suppose there's no one else available in the fall?