n to school!"

"You are trying to make me appear ridiculous," she retorts. "I know
that there are schools well enough, but people don't send boys of six
there, and Charles shall not start now."

"Don't get angry, my dear."

"As if I ever get angry! I am a woman and know how to suffer in
silence."

"Come, let us reason together."

"You have talked nonsense enough."

"It is time that Charles should learn to read and write; later in
life, he will find difficulties sufficient to disgust him."

Here, you talk for ten minutes without interruption, and you close
with an appealing "Well?" armed with an intonation which suggests an
interrogation point of the most crooked kind.

"Well!" she replies, "it is not yet time for Charles to go to school."

You have gained nothing at all.

"But, my dear, Monsieur Deschars certainly sent his little Julius to
school at six years. Go and examine the schools and you will find lots
of little boys of six there."

You talk for ten minutes more without the slightest interruption, and
then you ejaculate another "Well?"

"Little Julius Deschars came home with chilblains," she says.

"But Charles has chilblains here."

"Never," she replies, proudly.

In a quarter of an hour, the main question is blocked by a side
discussion on this point: "Has Charles had chilblains or not?"

You bandy contradictory allegations; you no longer believe each other;
you must appeal to a third party.

Axiom.--Every household has its Court of Appeals which takes no notice
of the merits, but judges matters of form only.

The nurse is sent for. She comes, and decides in favor of your wife.
It is fully decided that Charles has never had chilblains.

Caroline glances triumphantly at you and utters these monstrous words:
"There, you see Charles can't possibly go to school!"

You go out breathless with rage. There is no earthly means of
convincing your wife that there is not the slightest reason for your
son's not going to school in the fact that he has never had
chilblains.

That evening, after dinner, you hear this atrocious creature finishing
a long conversation with a woman with these words: "He wanted to send
Charles to school, but I made him see that he would have to wait."

Some husbands, at a conjuncture like this, burst out before everybody;
their wives take their revenge six weeks later, but the husbands gain
this by it, that Charles is sent to school the very day he gets into
any mis