"Damn foolishness," gurgled the Heavy Business Friend,
sipping his port.

"Of course you can't really discuss it with women,"
murmured the Host.

"Oh, no," assented all the others. Even the Half Man
sipped his wine and turned traitor, there being no one
to see.

"You see," said the Host, "if my wife likes to go to
meetings and be on committees, why, I don't stop her."

"Neither do I mine," said the Heavy Friend. "It amuses
her, so I let her do it." His wife, the Lady-with-the-Bust,
was safely out of hearing.

"I remember once," began the Interesting Man, "saying
to"--he paused a moment, for the others were looking at
him--"another man that if women did get the vote they'd
never use it, anyway. All they like is being talked about
for not getting it."

After which, having exhausted the Woman Question, the
five men turned to such bigger subjects as the fall in
sterling exchange and the President's seventeenth note
to Germany.

Then presently they went upstairs. And when they reached
the door of the drawing-room a keen observer, or, indeed,
any kind of observer, might have seen that all five of
them made an obvious advance towards the two empty seats
beside the Soft Lady.

VII. The Grass Bachelor's Guide.
With sincere Apologies to the Ladies' Periodicals

There are periods in the life of every married man when
he is turned for the time being into a grass bachelor.

This happens, for instance, in the summer time when his
wife is summering by the sea, and he himself is simmering
in the city. It happens also in the autumn when his wife
is in Virginia playing golf in order to restore her
shattered nerves after the fatigues of the seaside. It
occurs again in November when his wife is in the Adirondacks
to get the benefit of the altitude, and later on through
the winter when she is down in Florida to get the benefit
of the latitude. The breaking up of the winter being,
notoriously, a trying time on the system, any reasonable
man is apt to consent to his wife's going to California.
In the later spring, the season of the bursting flowers
and the young buds, every woman likes to be with her
mother in the country. It is not fair to stop her.

It thus happens that at various times of the year a great
number of men, unable to leave their business, are left
to their own resources as housekeepers in their deserted
houses and apartments. It is for their benefit that I
have put together these hints on house