“Perhaps there is such a commodity as superfluous personal sacrifice to one’s matrimonial obligations,” he soliloquized.  “Perhaps this spouse of mine with the pre-historic constitution can be cured by an abstract treatment.  Is she ill, or is she playing a wild, deceitful part?  Is she sitting on me with all her weight?” He was willing to allow her the usual proportion of female indisposition, but a continued story of such nightmare proportions was beginning to unstring his physical telephone system.  So, to we who have no wool over our eyes, this was one of the most pitiful and criminal cases of selfish indolence, perhaps coupled with a belief that a husband, through his sympathy, will love a woman the more because of her suffering.  No supposition, of course, could be farther from the concrete—­a husband wants, requires, admires, loves, a healthy, active working-partner.  Failing this the husband as a husband is down and out.

When hubby began to realize this an individual reformation was at the dawning.  The very next morning no breakfast arrived by private parcel post.

“Harry,” she exclaimed, “bring me my porridge and hot cakes; I am starving.”

“If you are starving get up and eat in your stall at the table,” said Harry, sarcastically, although it pained him.

“Harry!” she shouted, “you selfish beast!”

For diplomatic reasons Harry was silent.

Harry made an abrupt exit without waiting for adjournment, and went up town.  A new life seemed to be dawning upon him.  It was the emancipation from slavery.  He went into the drug store, into the hardware store, into the hotels and all the other stores—­he talked and laughed as he had never done before.

It was 3 a.m. the following morning when he found himself searching for the door-knob in the vicinity of the front window.  Having gained an entrance, he was accosted by his wife, who exclaimed:  “Harry, you drunk?”

“Well, y’see, it was the pioneer shupper,” said Harry, and he tumbled into bed.

This was Harry’s first ruse.  His next move was an affinity.  He would cease to pose as a piece of household furniture—­a dumb waiter sort of thing.

At that time there was a vision waiting table at the “Best” who had most of the fellows on a string.  Harry threw his grappling irons around her and took her in tow.  This went on for some time without suspicion being aroused on the part of the “invalid,” but the wireless telegraphy of gossip whispered the truth to her one day when she was wondering what demon had taken possession of her protector.  She dropped her artificial gown in an instant and rushed up Railway Avenue like a militant suffragette.  Just about the local emporium Harry was sailing along under a fair and favorable wind, hand in hand with his new dream, when he saw his legal prerogative approaching near the “Next Best” hotel.  He dislodged his grappling-hooks in an instant, stepped slightly in advance, and feigned that he had been running along on his own steam.  But she saw him and defined his movements.  They met like two express engines in collision, and what followed had better be left buried underneath the sidewalk of the local emporium.  There were dead and dying left on the field, and they reached home later by two rival routes of railway.