aking fun of you. You've finished my patience. This ends
it."

"Dirty linen," he rumbled.

"It's not a secret," she cried. "Do you suppose that the whole
street--the whole of London, for that matter---- Get away, Austin, we
don't want you here. Do you suppose they don't all talk about you?
Where is your dignity? You, a man who should have been Regius
Professor at a great University with a thousand students all revering
you. Where is your dignity, George?"

"How about yours, my dear?"

"You try me too much. A ruffian--a common brawling ruffian--that's
what you have become."

"Be good, Jessie."

"A roaring, raging bully!"

"That's done it! Stool of penance!" said he.

To my amazement he stooped, picked her up, and placed her sitting upon
a high pedestal of black marble in the angle of the hall. It was at
least seven feet high, and so thin that she could hardly balance upon
it. A more absurd object than she presented cocked up there with her
face convulsed with anger, her feet dangling, and her body rigid for
fear of an upset, I could not imagine.

"Let me down!" she wailed.

"Say 'please.'"

"You brute, George! Let me down this instant!"

"Come into the study, Mr. Malone."

"Really, sir----!" said I, looking at the lady.

"Here's Mr. Malone pleading for you, Jessie. Say 'please,' and down
you come."

"Oh, you brute! Please! please!"

He took her down as if she had been a canary.

"You must behave yourself, dear. Mr. Malone is a Pressman. He will
have it all in his rag to-morrow, and sell an extra dozen among our
neighbors. 'Strange story of high life'--you felt fairly high on that
pedestal, did you not? Then a sub-title, 'Glimpse of a singular
menage.' He's a foul feeder, is Mr. Malone, a carrion eater, like all
of his kind--porcus ex grege diaboli--a swine from the devil's herd.
That's it, Malone--what?"

"You are really intolerable!" said I, hotly.

He bellowed with laughter.

"We shall have a coalition presently," he boomed, looking from his wife
to me and puffing out his enormous chest. Then, suddenly altering his
tone, "Excuse this frivolous family badinage, Mr. Malone. I called you
back for some more serious purpose than to mix you up with our little
domestic pleasantries. Run away, little woman, and don't fret." He
placed a huge hand upon each of her shoulders. "All that you say is
perfectly true. I should be a better man if I did what you advise, but
I shouldn'