as his wife hates
Rivers' wife, and couldn't say enough about her, I knew about as much
of one family as the other before I came away."

"Does Mr. Blaisdell try to impress his better half with a sense of his
intellectual superiority, as he does the rest of his fellow mortals?"
asked Rutherford.

"If he ever did," answered Morgan, "he must have got bravely over it
some time ago; she treats him with a contempt that would have cured
him of that habit. I've sometimes thought that the reason he swells so
much out among people is because he's so unmercifully snubbed at
home."

"I see," said Rutherford, "just a natural effort to keep his
self-respect in equilibrium."

"Has he many children?" inquired Houston.

"Well, no," said Morgan, "not many, only fifteen."

"Only fifteen!" said Houston, in astonishment, while Rutherford
exclaimed, "Oh, come off now, you're joking!"

"No joking about it," said Morgan seriously, "I took the old man's
word for it. I tried several times to count 'em, but had to give it
up, it seemed that every day I saw a new one. Some of 'em are as old
as I; you see this is his third wife, and some of the children are
older than she."

"I think," said Rutherford, "I'd like a wife younger than my
children."

"He seems to," replied Morgan, "they're as spooney as can be, when
they're not quarreling."

"Oh, deliver me!" said Rutherford, "I don't want to hear any more
about them. How about that other man, Rivers? He hasn't such a surplus
of children and wives, has he?"

"Well," said Morgan slowly, "I guess if his children could all be got
together, there'd be more of 'em than of Blaisdell's, and he has full
as many wives, only, in his case, they are all living."

"Great Scott!" said Rutherford, "is he a Mormon?"

Morgan shook his head, and Houston said:

"Morgan, I think in your efforts to be entertaining, you are drawing
slightly on your imagination, thinking that we are fresh enough to
believe anything you choose to tell us."

"No, it's all true, whether you believe it or not. That man left a
wife and family of children somewhere in New York State, more than ten
years ago, and ran away with another woman; they have five or six
children, and here, about three years ago, since I came here, he got
his divorce from the first woman, and married this one. Then he spent
last winter in San Francisco, and it seems now, that he circulated
around there under another name,--and his name is no more River