ured, and smoked again. Then: "That Ben Sutton, now, he's
a case. Comes from Alaska and don't like fresh eggs for breakfast
because he says they ain't got any kick to 'em like Alaska eggs have
along in March, and he's got to have canned milk for his coffee. Say, I
got a three-quarters Jersey down in Red Gap gives milk so rich that the
cream just naturally trembles into butter if you speak sharply to it or
even give it a cross look; not for Ben though. Had to send out for
canned milk that morning. I drew the line at hunting up case eggs for
him though. He had to put up with insipid fresh ones. And fat, that man!
My lands! He travels a lot in the West when he does leave home, and he
tells me it's the fear of his life he'll get wedged into one of them
narrow-gauge Pullmans some time and have to be chopped out. Well, as I
was saying--" She paused.

"But you haven't begun," I protested. I sharply tapped the printed
verses and the photograph reading from left to right. Now she became
animated, speaking as she expertly rolled a fresh cigarette.

"Say, did you ever think what aggravating minxes women are after they
been married a few years--after the wedding ring gets worn a little bit
thin?"

This was not only brutal; it seemed irrelevant.

"Wilfred Lennox--" I tried to insist, but she commandingly raised the
new cigarette at me.

"Yes, sir! Ever know one of 'em married for as long as ten years that
didn't in her secret heart have a sort of contempt for her life partner
as being a stuffy, plodding truck horse? Of course they keep a certain
dull respect for him as a provider, but they can't see him as dashing
and romantic any more; he ain't daring and adventurous. All he ever does
is go down and open up the store or push back the roll-top, and keep
from getting run over on the street. One day's like another with him,
never having any wild, lawless instincts or reckless moods that make a
man fascinating--about the nearest he ever comes to adventure is when he
opens the bills the first of the month. And she often seeing him without
any collar on, and needing a shave mebbe, and cherishing her own secret
romantic dreams, while like as not he's prosily figuring out how he's
going to make the next payment on the endowment policy.

"It's a hard, tiresome life women lead, chained to these here plodders.
That's why rich widows generally pick out the dashing young devils they
do for their second, having buried the man that made it