olish, or
the number of godets proper to the skirt of a well-dressed woman?"

I was regaining confidence in myself, and as I talked I ceased to fear
her. Thought I to myself, "This attitude of supreme patronage is man's
safest weapon against a woman. Keep cool, assume that there is no doubt
of your superiority, and that she knows it. Appear to patronize her,
and her own indignation will defeat her ends." It is a good principle
generally. Among mortal women I have never known it to fail, and when I
find myself worsted in an argument with one of man's greatest blessings,
I always fall back upon it and am saved the ignominy of defeat. But this
time I counted without my antagonist.

"Will you repeat that list of problems?" she asked, coldly.

"Servants, baby-food, floor-polish, and godets," I repeated, somewhat
sheepishly, she took it so coolly.

"Very well," said Xanthippe, with a note of amusement in her
manipulation of the keys. "If those are your subjects, let us discuss
them. I am surprised to find an able-bodied man like yourself bothering
with such problems, but I'll help you out of your difficulties if I can.
No needy man shall ever say that I ignored his cry for help. What do you
want to know about baby-food?"

This turning of the tables nonplussed me, and I didn't really know what
to say, and so wisely said nothing, and the machine grew sharp in its
clicking.

"You men!" it cried. "You don't know how fearfully shallow you are. I
can see through you in a minute."

"Well," I said, modestly, "I suppose you can." Then calling my feeble
wit to my rescue, I added, "It's only natural, since I've made a
spectacle of myself."

"Not you!" cried Xanthippe. "You haven't even made a monocle of
yourself."

And here we both laughed, and the ice was broken.

"What has become of Boswell?" I asked.

"He's been sent to the ovens for ten days for libelling Shakespeare and
Adam and Noah and old Jonah," replied Xanthippe. "He printed an article
alleged to have been written by Baron Munchausen, in which those four
gentlemen were held up to ridicule and libelled grossly."

"And Munchausen?" I cried.

"Oh, the Baron got out of it by confessing that he wrote the article,"
replied the lady. "And as he swore to his confession the jury were
convinced he was telling another one of his lies and acquitted him, so
Boswell was sent up alone. That's why I am here. There isn't a man in
all Hades that dared take charge of Boswell's p