no help for it. I was obliged to tell him the truth. Between his
attachment to Rachel, and his attachment to me, he was sorely puzzled
and distressed at the turn things had taken. His opinion, when he
expressed it, was given in his usual downright manner, and was agreeably
redolent of the most positive philosophy I know--the philosophy of the
Betteredge school.

"Miss Rachel has her faults--I've never denied it," he began. "And
riding the high horse, now and then, is one of them. She has been trying
to ride over you--and you have put up with it. Lord, Mr. Franklin, don't
you know women by this time better than that? You have heard me talk of
the late Mrs. Betteredge?"

I had heard him talk of the late Mrs. Betteredge pretty
often--invariably producing her as his one undeniable example of the
inbred frailty and perversity of the other sex. In that capacity he
exhibited her now.

"Very well, Mr. Franklin. Now listen to me. Different women have
different ways of riding the high horse. The late Mrs. Betteredge took
her exercise on that favourite female animal whenever I happened to deny
her anything that she had set her heart on. So sure as I came home from
my work on these occasions, so sure was my wife to call to me up the
kitchen stairs, and to say that, after my brutal treatment of her,
she hadn't the heart to cook me my dinner. I put up with it for some
time--just as you are putting up with it now from Miss Rachel. At
last my patience wore out. I went downstairs, and I took Mrs.
Betteredge--affectionately, you understand--up in my arms, and carried
her, holus-bolus, into the best parlour where she received her company.
I said 'That's the right place for you, my dear,' and so went back to
the kitchen. I locked myself in, and took off my coat, and turned up my
shirt-sleeves, and cooked my own dinner. When it was done, I served it
up in my best manner, and enjoyed it most heartily. I had my pipe and
my drop of grog afterwards; and then I cleared the table, and washed the
crockery, and cleaned the knives and forks, and put the things away,
and swept up the hearth. When things were as bright and clean again, as
bright and clean could be, I opened the door and let Mrs. Betteredge in.
'I've had my dinner, my dear,' I said; 'and I hope you will find that I
have left the kitchen all that your fondest wishes can desire.' For the
rest of that woman's life, Mr. Franklin, I never had to cook my dinner
again! Moral: You have put