prove that he was born May 10, 1888. Is she likely to be
mistaken on such a point when she cried all night in Boston and the
bereft infant wailed all night in New York? What does Charles take her
for? Hasn't he said, himself, dozens of times, that there is no use
arguing as to times and seasons with a woman who verifies these by her
children's ages? Mr. Jenkyns has said so--but with a difference. There
is no use arguing with a woman in any circumstances, whatsoever. That
Emma tries to carry her point now by lugging in the poor little kid,
who has nothing whatever to do with the case, is but another proof of
the inconsequence of the sex. He has the stub of his check-book to
show that he paid the hotel bill in Boston, April 11, 1889. Figures
cannot lie. Mrs. Charles Jenkyns challenges the check-book on the
spot--and the wrangle goes on until she seeks her chamber to have her
cry out, and he storms off to office or club, irritated past
forbearance by the pig-headed perversity of a creature he called
"angel" with every third breath on their wedding journey to Boston in
1886.

Each of the combatants was confident, after the first exchange of
shots, that the other was in error. Half an hour's quarreling left
both doubly confident of the truth which was self-evident from the
outset. It is sadly probable that neither will ever confess, to
himself or to herself, that the only wise course for either to pursue
would have been to let ignorance have its perfect work, by abstaining
from so much as a hint of contradiction.

"I don't see how you held your temper and your tongue!" said one man
to another, as a self-satisfied acquaintance strutted away from the
pair after a monologue of ten minutes upon a matter of which both of
his companions knew infinitely more than he. "I hadn't patience to
listen to him, much less answer him good-humoredly--he is such a
fool!"

"I let him alone because he is a fool."

"But he is puffed up by the fond impression that you agree with him!"

"That doesn't hurt me,--and waste of cellular tissue in such a cause
would!"

"Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit?" asks Solomon. "There is
more hope of a fool than of him."

Which I take to mean that self-conceit is the rankest form of folly, a
sort of triple armor of defence against counter-statement and
rebutting argument. So far as my experience goes to prove a
disheartening proposition,--all fools are wise (to themselves) in
their own conceit. T