se? . . . Really I don't see anything to laugh at.'

'Excuse me, dear, I really couldn't help it, the idea of _us_ washing
with Monkey Brand is too excruciatingly funny. Of course it's for the
pots and pans and sinks!'

'You seem to use a great deal of soap in the house.'

'No, dear, quite a little, as any _housekeeper_ would tell you' (Valeria
could not resist this thrust), 'and I don't think you would like the
result if we economised in soap. But why worry so, since the total is
reasonable? You'll find nothing there but absolute necessities. Why
won't you leave it all to me?'

In the end he was compelled to, but few wives would have shown Valeria's
patience under this very unnecessary infliction.

Of course this is an extreme case, but a great many men do interfere in
their wives' department to a most irritating extent. To my mind the
perfect way is for the whole financial budget of the house to be left to
the wife, just as the whole budget of the office or estate is left to
the husband. I am now dealing of course with people of limited means.
As a rule, a man has quite enough money worry during his day's work and
does not want any more of it when he gets home. To have to sit down to
write cheques in the evening is a task that seems to bring out all the
worst qualities in a husband. He may enter the house a devoted lover,
and heap evening papers, flowers, and chocolates on his wife's knee.
During dinner he may be genial, witty, affectionate, delightful--but
present him with a bundle of bills at ten P.M. with the remark that
really these ought to be seen to--and at once he becomes a fierce,
snarling, primitive, repulsive, and blasphemous creature. No matter if
his balance at the bank be ever so satisfactory, no matter if every bill
be for something he has personally required, and no single one incurred
by his wife--these facts weigh not at all with him. Bills are bills,
and at the sight of them husbands become savages. If I should call on
Miranda one morning about the seventh or eighth of the month, I am sure
to find her red-eyed and worn and to be told: 'Last night Lysander said
he'd do the bills and of course he's been damning and blasting ever
since, though they're ridiculously small this month.' Exactly the same
with Isolda. 'Launcelot wrote the month's cheques last night,' she will
say, 'and handling bills always has a terrible effect on him; it's a
kind of disease with him, poor dear, and I never can sleep af