Taking the Meanest Advantage of a Devoted Wife.

Evening Star, Issue 6726, 7 October 1885, Page 4

Taking the Meanest Advantage of a Devoted Wife.

"You see, Martha got into the habit of sitting up for me at an early age, and she can't break it oft! I couldn't persuade her to go to bed and mind her own business, so I studied on the matter. We live in one of the centre houses of a block of five-storey and attic buildings. There's scuttles in the roofs of all of them, and I persuaded Mr Greenup, who lives in the adjoining house, to let me into his house last night about one o'clock, and I went up through his scuttle and over to mine, and so down into our bedroom. I could see Martha from the head of the stairs, sitting in the front room eyeing tho clock with a look that was a very tart chromo. But I undressed and quietly got to bed, and there I lay waiting developments. Every now and then I'd hear Martha give a short fidgety cough. Then I'd hear her get up, prance around the room a little, and by and by go to the front windows and slam the shutters. " After I'd lain there about an hour I heard her get up and go stand on the front stoop for a good ten minutes. Then she ; came in and slammed the door and locked it, and commenced coming upstairs. Every other step she'd say : ' Oh, the wretch ! Won't I give it to him !' I know where he is ! I knovy where he is! He needn't think to deceive me! Oh, the villain!*' '"Bout the time she had nearly got to the landing I think she must have seen the light streaming out of the door that I'd left ajar. I could hear her stop, and then I commenced to snore. ' I was afraid to look, you know, but I could feel her cautiously come up to the door and look in. Well, sir, I'd have given my pension from the war of 1776 to have seen her about the time she saw it was me. I'll bet it was fun. But I was afraid to do anything but snore. Then she came into the room, and, by the way she breathed and stood around, I had to nearly bite my tongue off to keep a straight face on me. I could feel that she sat down in a chair, and was dumbfounded. I never let on, but kept on snoring like thunder, but when she kicked over a chair I turned and pretended to wake up, kind of dazed like, and says: — "' Why, Martha, dear, ain't you come to bed yet ?' " ' Jarphly,' said she, awful slow and solemn-like, ' when did you come in 1 ' " ' Why, must be four or five hours ago. Don't you remember when I told you not to go to sleep again in the rocker, but to come up to bed V and I turned over and professed to go to sleep again. "She never made any reply, but acted in a dazed, bewildered sort of way ; and when she got to bed I could tell she didn't sleep a wink for three hours. " This morning it was fun to watch Martha. I could hardly keep a straight face. At the breakfast table, and all the time I was about the house, she'd eye me when she thought I wasn't looking; then, when I'd notice her, she'd turn away and be awfully busy at something. She caught me land of grinning once, and, by George! 1 thought the explosion was about to come. But it didn't, though the look of blank, unfathomable suspicion she wore on her face all the time was the greatest show on earth. It nearly broke me up, and I've laughed till my ribs ache ever since. I know it won't last. I know there's a day of reckoning a-coming, and the thermometer is going up clear out of sight in the Jarphly family. But who's going after trouble 1 It'll come soon enough withoutJiunting it, and I. am going to enjoy that scuttle in the roof until the explosion comes."