And so the little comedy is being enacted in many of our charming and eMiciently run households. It would never do to reveal the feeling of disappointment with which the office telephone was banged down on refusing that invitation to a bachelor dinner (grass-widower is too clumsy a word) with bridge for four, or poker for six. What a relaxation after a sizzling day of toil at the office desk to join three cronies at the club, while away several hours there, and after a good dinner, forget one's cares and, above all, one's loneliness, in passing the cool hours of the evening in such congenial company. It makes for sound sleep afterwards and an easy conscience for, after all, hang it, one has done the decent thing and sent the wife and family away for the summer.
And the wives! One has to probe the depths of their complete change of attitude towards the horrors of a Shanghai summer. A much more difficult task. But enlightenment comes to one after a little finesse.
Dining at a charming house one was ushered through a fan-cooled drawing-room, with shaded lights—the furniture in its summer dress of cool green covers—to a mosquito-screened verandah which looked out on a pleasant garden. A well thought out dinner—no mere man is capable of this—with iced consomme to commence, followed by a~cool salad and afterwards the inevitable chicken, but disguised in a mixture of creamed rooms; fruit jelly the next cou!
and then delicious coffee, put one ease with the world.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.