THE PEN-WIPER 135
THE 9.43 143
THE CONUNDRUMS 151
THE INK 159
THE PUBLIC SCANDAL 167
THE "CHRISTIAN MARTYR" 175
THE PAGRAMS 183
PROMOTION 191

ELIZA'S HUSBAND

"Suppose," I said to one of the junior clerks at our office the other
day, "you were asked to describe yourself in a few words, could you do
it?"

His answer that he could describe me in two was no answer at all. Also
the two words were not a description, and were so offensive that I did
not continue the conversation.

I believe there are but few people who could give you an accurate
description of themselves. Often in the train to and from the city, or
while walking in the street, I think over myself--what I have been,
what I am, what I might be if, financially speaking, it would run to
it. I imagine how I should act under different circumstances--on the
receipt of a large legacy, or if for some specially clever action I
were taken into partnership, or if a mad bull came down the street. I
may say that I make a regular study of myself. I have from time to time
recorded on paper some of the more important incidents of our married
life, affecting Eliza and myself, and I present them to you, gentle
reader, in this little volume. I think they show how with a very
limited income--and but for occasional assistance from Eliza's mother I
do not know how we should have got along--a man may to a great extent
preserve respectability, show taste and judgment, and manage his wife
and home.

The more I think about myself, the more--I say it in all modesty--the
subject seems to grow. I should call myself many-sided, and in many
respects unlike ordinary men. Take, for instance, the question of
taste. Some people would hardly think it worth while to mention a
little thing like taste; but I do. I am not rich, but what I have I
like to have ornamental, though not loud. Only the other day the
question of glass-cloths for the kitchen turned up, and though those
with the red border were threepence a dozen dearer than the plain, I
ordered them without hesitation. Eliza changed them next day, contrary
to my wishes, and we had a few words