the result was phenomenal. Mr. Onedollar had at last multiplied his
insignificant unit by five and had a concrete accumulation. The two
ladies dressed themselves alike extravagantly, and all rivalry ceased.
They became great friends again and lived happily ever after. And all
this disturbance and discord of human hearts was over a miserable bundle
of inanimate drapery.

Of the Ruse That Failed

Once upon a time in Ashcroft there lived a lady who had the wool pulled
over her husband's eyes to such an extent that he had optical illusions
favorable to the "darling" who deceived him. His most alluring illusion
was a booby idea that his "pet" was an invalid, and she kept pouring oil
on the joke to keep it burning, and pulled the wool down further and
further so that hubby could not see the combustible fluid she was
pouring into the flames. Her illness was one of those "to be continued"
story kinds--better to-day, worse to-morrow--and she "took" to the
blankets at the most annoying and inopportune moments; and every time
she "took" an indisposition she expected hubby to pull down the window
curtains and go into mourning. But he, the hardhearted man, would
continue to eat and smoke and sleep as though no volcanic lava were
threatening to submerge the old homestead. His sympathy was not enough;
he should stop eating, stop sleeping, and stop smoking--he should be in
direct communication with the undertaker and negotiating about the price
of caskets.

His wife had the misleading conviction that when she was ill her case
was more serious than that of anyone else. In fact, no one else had ever
suffered as she suffered; their ailments were summer excursions to the
antipodes compared with hers, and when hubby argued that all flesh was
subject to ills and disorders, that almost every unit of the human
species had toothaches and rheumatics, the argument was voted down
unanimously by the suffragette majority as illegitimate argument.

Gradually hubby became convinced that his wife was an invalid, and he
went into mourning as much as a man could mourn the loss of a joy that
he had grasped for, and just missed in the grasping. He enjoyed the
situation as much as a man could who had discovered that he had
amalgamated himself with an hospital which was mortgaged for all it was
worth to the family physician. Out of his salary of seventy-five dollars
per month sixty-five was devoted towards the financing of the doctor's
time paym