r run her against the rocks, and no
great harm is done, because timber's plenty and you can build another
one. But when one woman scuttles three men and then ties to a fourth,
what are you going to do about it? You can't go out into the woods and
chop down trees and saw them up and tack them together and build a
man. Now, can you?"

"That seems to be the common impression, anyway."

"Just so. And I want you to pass a bill through that Legislature to
make it a felony for a widow to marry again. I've drawn up a draft of
a bill and I'll leave it with you. I've made it retroactive, so that
it'll bring that woman Banger up with a short turn and send her after
Smith and the others. I don't care to marry, myself, but I want
justice. Are you married?"

"Madam, leave the bill with me and I will examine it."

"I say are you married?"

"I--I--married did you say? Oh yes. I've been married for ten years."

"Very well, then; good-morning;" and Miss Mooney withdrew.

"Thunder!" exclaimed the colonel as he shut the door. "If I'd've been
single, I believe she'd've proposed on the spot."

It is not considered likely that the Mooney anti-widow bill will be
pushed very hard in the Legislature next session.

CHAPTER XII.

_A NEW MRS. TOODLES.--POTTS' ADVENTURES_.

One evening I met Mr. Potts out upon the turnpike, taking a walk;
and I joined him. As we proceeded he became rather confidential. The
subject of the mania for collecting bric-a-brac came up; and after an
expression of opinion from me respecting the matter, Mr. Potts told
the story of his wife's fondness for that kind of thing. He said,

"My wife is the most infatuated bric-a-brac hunter I ever heard of.
She's an uncommonly fine woman about most things; loves her children;
makes splendid pies; don't fool with any of those fan-dangling ways
women have of fixing their hair; and she's an angel for temper. But
she beats Mrs. Toodles for going to auctions. She's filled my house
with the wildest mess of bric-a-brac and such stuff you ever came
across outside of a museum of natural curiosities. She's spent
more money for wrecks that wouldn't be allowed in the cellar of a
poor-house than'd keep a family in comfort for years.

"You know Scudmore, who sold out the other day? She was there, bidding
away like a millionaire. Came home with a wagon-load of things--four
albata tea-pots without lids or handles; two posts of a bedstead and
three slats; a couple of churns a