GETTINS ON A CERTAINTY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 194, 30 August 1901, Page 4

GETTINS ON A CERTAINTY

" Woman," remarked Mr Gooralißg, *is Heaven's best gift to man, but whether it means a married woman or not, I am not so certain „ " Now, sherd's my wife. I've known a good many woman in my time, and I don't think I'd bo wi'ling so change her for any wom%n I erer met, saw, or heard of. We've bceo married twenty years, and in ah tout time we've nevei had a cross word that we didn't get disposed cf somehow before we had many more. I*>'s the only way to get along with a woman. I'd rather yield a dozen times a day then try to eat the kudof a mrat my wife can havsbrought on the table when she's a mind to. I'm willing to make as many concessions ai moat men, but I really think th<re is a limit that any reasonable woman ought to observe. Not that my wife is not as reasonable as any other married woman, for the is. Bat there are times when she makes me doubt the strict accuracy of the time-honored maxim I have qiofced. Now, for instance, the other day I was doing something or other around the housp, as a man has a right to rearrange bis own premises, and, just as men sometimes do, I pat my finger where I had no busiaess to pat it, and hit it a crack with the hammer. "'Well,'said I to myself, though my wife was sewing by the window nn the other side of the room, Til bet I'm the biggest fool in the country.' " All of which I had a perfect right to say. Bat my wife looks ap from her work, and says she: "'William,' says she, 'don't you know enough about the ethics of gambling to know that you have no right to bet on a certainty? "That's what she said, and in the circumstances what en earth could I •ay but nothing, and that's what I said. But I hit that nail a bing with the hammer that drove it clean over its head and bioke a pane of glass that cost four shillings and sixpence to replaoe."