F.  “It’s you that is the brute.”

Mrs. F.  “No, it isn’t.”

F.  “Yes, it is.  You’re as snappish as a mad dog.  It’s few men that could live with you.”

Mrs. F.  “If you say that again, I’ll scratch your eyes out.”

F.  “I dare you to lay your hands on me, you vixen.”

Mrs. F.  “You do, eh?  Well, take that! and that” (cuffing him on the head).

F.  “You let go of my hair, or I’ll murder you.”

Mrs. F.  “I will; and I’ll leave this house this very night; I won’t live any longer with such a monster.”

F.  “Well, quit; get out.  The sooner, the better.  Good riddance to bad rubbish; and take your clothes with you.”

Mrs. F.  “I’m sorry I ever married you.  You ain’t fit to be yoked with any decent woman, you wretch you!”

F.  “Well, you ain’t half as sorry as I am.  Good-bye.  Don’t come back soon.”

Then Mrs. Fogg put on her bonnet and went around to her mother’s, but she came back in the morning.  Mr. Fogg hasn’t yet confessed what his principal failing is.

* * * * *

Mr. Fogg’s life has been very troublous.  He told me that he had a fit of sleeplessness one night lately, and after vainly trying to lose himself in slumber he happened to remember that he once read in an almanac that a man could put himself to sleep by imagining that he saw a lot of sheep jumping over a fence, and by counting them as they jumped.  He determined to try the experiment; and closing his eyes, he fancied the sheep jumping and began to count.  He had reached his one hundred and fortieth sheep, and was beginning to doze off, when Mrs. Fogg suddenly said,

“Wilberforce!”

“Oh, what?”

“I believe that yellow hen of ours wants to set.”

“Oh, don’t bother me with such nonsense as that now!  Do keep quiet and go to sleep.”

Then Mr. Fogg started his sheep again and commenced to count.  He got up to one hundred and twenty, and was feeling as if he would drop off at any moment, when, just as his one hundred and twenty-first sheep was about to take that fence, the baby began to cry.

“Hang that child!” he shouted at Mrs. Fogg.  “Why don’t you tend to it and put it to sleep?  Hush, you little imp, or I’ll spank you!”

When Mrs. Fogg had quieted it, Mr. Fogg, although a little nervous and excited, concluded to try it again.  Turning on the imaginary mutton, he began.  Only sixty-four sheep had slid over the fence, when Fogg’s aunt knocked at the door and asked if he was awake.  When she learned that he was, she said she believed he had forgotten to close the back shutters, and she thought she heard burglars in the yard.