it plainly, or (it may be, after a struggle) he looks another way, and resigns himself to the inevitable.  For inevitable it is, if he is to continue in that life of indolence and extravagant comfort which habit has made a necessity for him.  So he submits to the constant companionship of a third party, and, in order to be truly tolerated in his own household, becomes tolerant in a manner that is almost sublime.  He allows his friend to help him with large subventions of money; he lets him cover his wife with costly jewels.  He is content to be supplanted without fuss, provided the supplanter never decreases the stream of his benevolence; and the supplanter, having more wealth than he knows what to do with, is quite content to secure his object on such extremely easy terms.  And thus the Tolerated Husband is created.

It is curious to notice how cheerfully, to all outward appearance, he accepts what other men would consider a disaster.  Before the world he carries his head high with an assumption of genial frankness and easy good temper.  “Come and dine with us to-morrow, my boy,” he will say to an old acquaintance, “there’ll only be yourself and a couple of others besides ourselves.  We’ll go to the play afterwards.”  And the acquaintance will most certainly discover, if he accepts the invitation, that the “ourselves” included not only husband and wife, but friend as well.  He will also notice that the last is even more at home in the house, and speaks in a tone of greater authority than the apparent host.  Everything is referred to him for decision, and the master of the house treats him with a deferential humility which goes far to contradict the cynical observation that there is no gratitude on earth.  The Tolerated Husband, indeed, never tires of dispensing hospitality at the cost of his friend, and though the whole world knows the case, there will never be a lack of guests to accept what is offered.

At last, however, in spite of his toleration, he becomes an encumbrance in his own house, and, like most encumbrances, he has to be paid off, the friend providing the requisite annual income.  One after another he puts off the last remaining rags of his pretended self-respect.  He haunts his Clubs less and less frequently, and seems to wither under the open dislike of those who are repelled by the mean and sordid details of his despicable story.  And thus he drags on his life, a degraded and comparatively impoverished outcast, untidy, haggard and shunned, having forfeited by the restriction of his spending powers even the good-natured contempt of those who were not too proud to be at one time mistaken for his friends.

* * * * *

Labours for Lent.

Emperor of Germany.—­To conciliate the great men who have had to prefix “Ex” to their official titles since he ascended the Throne.

Emperor of Russia.—­To find a resting-place safe from the Nihilists.