Read "The Wooden Hand" by Fergus Hume online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Mr. and Mrs. Merry were seated the next day in the kitchen having a long chat. It was not a pleasant one, for Mrs. Merry was weeping as usual, and reproaching her husband. Giles had been out to see his old cronies in the village, and consequently had imbibed sufficient liquor to make him quarrelsome. The first thing he did, when he flung himself into a chair, was to grumble at the kitchen.
"Why should we sit here, Selina? " he asked; "it's a blamed dull hole, and I'm accustomed to drawing-rooms."