nd from the depths of his sore heart he
brought up woe upon woe. 'Here's another instance,' he said at length.
'It's rather ridiculous, but you won't laugh at me, I know. Of course
it's absurd of me to have remembered it, but--well, I have. She was
sitting up in bed brushing her hair, I came into the room to ask if
there was anything I could bring her from town, and I happened to stand
at her dressing-table and straighten my tie. We were both reflected in
the mirror and she said, suddenly, with a little laugh: "What an ugly
brute you are!" . . . that's all, she said it quite politely, but--well,
it hurt me absurdly, it was so devilish unnecessary. And I suppose it's
true, too, I'd never thought of it before, but I often have
since. . . .'

Yet another example of how not to do it: 'If I'm shabby,' a despairing
wife told me once, 'he says: "Why can't you look decent." When I'm
smart, it's "More new clothes! I don't know who's going to pay for
them." If the _menu_ is exceptional he says: "This extravagance will
ruin me," and when it's ordinary he asks: "Is that all?"'

* * *

I have previously referred to men's clubs as a boon to wives, and so
they have always appeared to me. But evidently this opinion is not
generally held, as a number of women have recently expressed in print
their intention--when they get the vote--of agitating for complete
abolition, or at least compulsorily early closing, of all men's clubs.
It seems sadly ridiculous that women should want their husbands
compelled by Act of Parliament to return to them at a fixed hour. Let me
endeavour to convert these misguided wives, if any of them should deign
to read this book.

Dear ladies, almost everything your husbands cannot get at home they can
get at the club--the more completely their wants are satisfied the more
pleasant they are to live with, and consequently your home is the
happier! If they have a hobby, they generally join a club connected with
it, or where they can meet other men similarly enslaved. Be it politics,
sport, horses, cards, music, golf, or the theatre--if it is in their
blood, it must come out, and sensible wives allow it to do so. A hobby
suppressed means a hubby embittered. At the club they can have their
rubber, or their rage against the Government; they can put
half-a-sovereign in the sweep-stake, and compare notes about last
night's grand slam and their latest bunker, or whatever the term may be.
At the club they can mee