when to dive in. I mention this because yesterday some
one who'd run across you at Yemassee told me that you and Helen were
exchanging the grip of the third degree under the breakfast-table, and
trying to eat your eggs with your left hands. Of course, this is all
very right and proper if you can keep it up, but I've known a good
many men who would kiss their wives on the honeymoon between swallows
of coffee and look like an ass a year later when she chirruped out at
the breakfast-table, "Do you love me, darling?" I'm just a little
afraid that you're one of those fellows who wants to hold his wife in
his lap during the first six months of his married life, and who, when
she asks him at the end of a year if he loves her, answers "Sure." I
may be wrong about this, but I've noticed a tendency on your part to
slop over a little, and a pail that slops over soon empties itself.

It's been my experience that most women try to prove their love by
talking about it, and most men by spending money. But when a
pocketbook or a mouth is opened too often nothing but trouble is left
in it.

Don't forget the little attentions due your wife, but don't hurt the
grocer's feelings or treat the milkman with silent contempt in order
to give them to her. You can hock your overcoat before marriage to buy
violets for a girl, but when she has the run of your wardrobe you
can't slap your chest and explain that you stopped wearing it because
you're so warm-blooded. A sensible woman soon begins to understand
that affection can be expressed in porterhouse steaks as well as in
American beauties. But when Charlie, on twenty-five a week, marries a
fool, she pouts and says that he doesn't love her just the same
because he takes her to the theatre now in the street-cars, instead of
in a carriage, as he used to in those happy days before they were
married. As a matter of fact, this doesn't show that she's losing
Charlie's love, but that he's getting his senses back. It's been my
experience that no man can really attend to business properly when
he's chased to the office every morning by a crowd of infuriated
florists and livery-men.

Of course, after a girl has spent a year of evenings listening to a
fellow tell her that his great ambition is to make her life one grand,
sweet song, it jars her to find the orchestra grunting and snoring
over the sporting extra some night along six months after the
ceremony. She stays awake and cries a little over this, so