hy with kings and their needs."

"Oh, as for that," said I, "in America we are all kings and we are not
without our needs, matrimonial and otherwise, only our courts are
not quite so expeditious as Henry's little axe. But what was Henry's
attitude towards this extraordinary flight of Xanthippe's?"

"Wrath," said Boswell. "He was very much enraged, and withdrew his
advertisements, declined to give our society reporters the usual
accounts of the functions his wives chaperoned, and, worst of all, has
withdrawn himself and induced others to withdraw from the symposium I
was preparing for my special Summer Girls' issue, which is to appear
in August, on 'How Men Propose.' He and Brigham Young and Solomon and
Bonaparte had agreed to dictate graphic accounts of how they had done
it on various occasions, and Queen Elizabeth, who probably had more
proposals to the square minute that any other woman on record, was to
write the introduction. This little plan, which was really the idea of
genius, is entirely shattered by Mrs. Socrates's infernal interference."

"Nonsense," said I. "Don't despair. Why don't you come out with a plain
statement of the facts? Apologize."

"You forget, my dear sir," interposed Boswell, "that one of the
fundamental principles of Hades as an institution is that excuses don't
count. It isn't a place for repentance so much as for expiation, and I
might apologize nine times a minute for forty years and would still have
to suffer the penalty of the offence. No, there is nothing to be done
but to begin my newspaper work again, build up again the institution
that Xanthippe has destroyed, and bear my misfortunes like a true
spirit."

"Spoken like a philosopher!" I cried. "And if I can help you, my dear
Boswell, count upon me. In anything you may do, whether you start
a monthly magazine, a sporting weekly, or a purely American Sunday
newspaper, you are welcome to anything I can do for you."

"You are very kind," returned Boswell, appreciatively, "and if I need
your services I shall be glad to avail myself of them. Just at present,
however, my plans are so fully prepared that I do not think I shall
have to call upon you. With Sherlock Holmes engaged to write twelve
new detective stories; Poe to look after my tales of horror; D'Artagnan
dictating his personal memoirs; Lucretia Borgia running my Girls'
Department; and others too numerous to mention, I have a sufficient
supply of stuff to fill up; but if you fee