for a union meetin', eh?"

"Don't be always knockin'!" I answers, gettin' peeved. "Them boys is
all honest and true, even if they do look a little rough to the naked
eye. But how is it you come back to-day when you wasn't due for a
month?"

"You're tickled to death to see me, ain't you?" she asks, pullin' the
pout that formerly helped sell the magazines.

To be level with you, I was--mad and all.

"Why, dearie!" I remarks, kissin' her. "You know I--"

"Easy with the oil!" she cuts me off. "Get on your hat and coat; we're
goin' right down to Grand Central Station."

"Don't you think it's liable to tire you, honey," I asks her, "runnin'
back and forth from Lakewood like this?"

"I'm not goin' to Lakewood, Stupid," she says. "We're goin' down to
meet Alex Hanley--of course you remember him?"

I threw in the self-starter on the old brain, but there was nothin'
doin'.

"No!" I says. "To come right out with it--I don't. I realize though
that he must be a lu-lu when we're goin' down and meet him at the
station. What did he do--lick Dempsey?"

"Idiot!" says the wife, callin' me by her favorite pet name. "He's my
cousin."

Oh, boy!

We was goin' down in the elevator and I sunk in the seat with a low
moan. In the short space since me and the wife had been wed, I had met
her father, six brothers, four nephews, three cousins and a bevy of her
uncles. They all claimed they was pleased to meet me, though they
couldn't figure how their favorite female relative come to fall for
me--and then they folleyed that lead up with a request for everything
from a job to ten bucks.

"All right, dearie," I says, finally, "I'm game! Believe me, though,
while your family is all aces to me on account of bein' related to you,
I often find myself wishin' that you had been an orphan!"

"I could of married a couple of millionaires!" sighs the wife. "And to
think I turned 'em down for you!"

"If you had married a _couple_ of millionaires, you would of been
pinched!" I says. "What d'ye think this cousin of yours will want to
start off with, from your affectionate husband?"

"Nothin'!" she tells me. "Alex never asked a favor in his life.
Believe me, this one is different!"

"I can see that from here!" I says. "If you claim he won't take me for
something he's different, all right. In fact I can hardly believe he
belongs to the family at all."

"I was brought up never to brawl in the open," says the wife, "so I'm
lett