y was supposed to be going on.

"You didn't use to talk in that way," said Josephine, with slow
precision. "I only hope, Fred, for your sake that people won't hear
about this."

"They will not, certainly, unless you tell them, Josephine."

"Tell them? I wouldn't mention what has happened for the world," she
answered, looking at me with a sort of sorrowful disdain. Thus is it
that the ideals which women form concerning us are one by one shattered!
I am sure that Josephine would have been inconsolable had I fallen a
victim to the bullet of a house-breaker. You will recall that her first
impulse was to prevent me from exposing myself for the sake of the solid
silver service. She had taken it for granted that I would slip the bolt
and go part way down stairs, at least, pistol in hand, and she had wished
to caution me against undue rashness. Consequently, it was a rude blow
to her sensibilities to find that I was such a craven. She cared no more
for our apostle spoons and gold-lined vegetable dishes than I did; it was
the principle of the thing which distressed her. Why had I bought a
six-shooter shortly after our marriage except to be equipped for just
such an emergency? It did certainly seem that I was bound by all the
laws of custom to pop at least once over the banisters, even though I
took no aim and scurried back into my bedroom immediately after. That
would have satisfied her, she subsequently admitted to me; but to drop a
pair of Indian clubs on the floor in order to make a clatter could be
regarded as little less than pusillanimous, philosophy or no philosophy.

We have talked it over many times since, and I have endeavored to make
plain to her that in the process of evolution thinking men have come to
the conclusion that the husband and father who chops logic at dead of
night with an accomplished burglar on the wrong side of his chamber door
is akin to a lunatic. She listens to my arguments attentively, and she
has done me the honor to admit that there is more to be said in my behalf
than she thought at first; but I remember that the last time we conversed
upon the subject she shook her head with the air of a woman who, in spite
of everything, is still of the same opinion, and she murmured gently:

"As I told you before, Fred, if you had fired once over the banisters, I
would say nothing."

"But I might have been killed or maimed for life as a consequence," I
blurted, feelingly. Josephine looked a