of a woman how to destroy her dear husband.  I will not then tell this easy and simple way of murder, as communicated to me by a most respectable party in the confidence of private intercourse.  Suppose some gentle reader were to try this most simple and easy receipt—­it seems to me almost infallible—­and come to grief in consequence, and be found out and hanged?  Should I ever pardon myself for having been the means of doing injury to a single one of our esteemed subscribers?  The prescription whereof I speak—­that is to say, whereof I don’t speak—­shall be buried in this bosom.  No, I am a humane man.  I am not one of your Bluebeards to go and say to my wife, “My dear!  I am going away for a few days to Brighton.  Here are all the keys of the house.  You may open every door and closet, except the one at the end of the oak-room opposite the fireplace, with the little bronze Shakespeare on the mantel-piece (or what not).”  I don’t say this to a woman—­unless, to be sure, I want to get rid of her—­because, after such a caution, I know she’ll peep into the closet.  I say nothing about the closet at all.  I keep the key in my pocket, and a being whom I love, but who, as I know, has many weaknesses, out of harm’s way.  You toss up your head, dear angel, drub on the ground with your lovely little feet, on the table with your sweet rosy fingers, and cry, “Oh, sneerer!  You don’t know the depth of woman’s feeling, the lofty scorn of all deceit, the entire absence of mean curiosity in the sex, or never, never would you libel us so!” Ah, Delia! dear, dear Delia!  It is because I fancy I do know something about you (not all, mind—­no, no; no man knows that)—­Ah, my bride, my ringdove, my rose, my poppet—­choose, in fact, whatever name you like—­bulbul of my grove, fountain of my desert, sunshine of my darkling life, and joy of my dungeoned existence, it is because I do know a little about you that I conclude to say nothing of that private closet, and keep my key in my pocket.  You take away that closet-key then, and the house-key.  You lock Delia in.  You keep her out of harm’s way and gadding, and so she never can be found out.

And yet by little strange accidents and coincidents how we are being found out every day.  You remember that old story of the Abbe Kakatoes, who told the company at supper one night how the first confession he ever received was—­from a murderer let us say.  Presently enters to supper the Marquis de Croquemitaine.  “Palsambleu, abbe!” says the brilliant marquis, taking a pinch of snuff, “are you here?  Gentlemen and ladies!  I was the abbe’s first penitent, and I made him a confession, which I promise you astonished him.”