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Show Uncle Valfe of on 3 a - k I DOMINANT WOMAN 4fTHERE-S much truth in the old 3- saying that a bachelor is merely mere-ly half a man," observed the professor. "I suppose you are trying to lake a fall out of me because I don't get mar-I mar-I ried," said the low-browed man. "It may be true that a bachelor is only a half a man, but when he accumulates accumu-lates a wife, he's usually only a quarter of a man, or maybe one-eighth. one-eighth. The more I see of married men, the more thankful I am that I have never loomed up at the altar with an orange or-ange wreath on ' "Old Doolittle has been married ft long time, -and he's got so used to he- ing bossed by his wife that he doesn't know ;what to do when she isn't around. If you offered to lend him $5 he'd say lie'd have to consult Eliza Jane about it. One time, when his wife was away, visiting, he ate about a peck of green cucumbers, and the colic shut him up like a folding bed. It was the worst case I ever saw. I beard hira yelling for the police, and when I rushed over there and saw him on the floor, with his feet clasped across- the back of his neck, I phoned for a doctor at once. We put him to bed, and. the agony that man endured was siekening. And .as he rolled around there, expecting to go off the hooks every minute, he kept saying, 'What will Eliza Jane say when -she hears I called in a doctor?' "After his wife came back, I was over at their house one night, and she roasted me to a crisp for sending for a doctor. She said that if I had the first instincts of a gentleman I'd pay the bill, for I wasn't authorized to call in a sawbones, and she didn't want one in the house. ' Doolittle sat there and heard his wife roasting me until my whiskers curled and, although he knew the doctor saved his life, he never said a word. "After I left the house, he sneaked out and overtook me, and told me he was sorry for what had'happened, but experience had taught him that it's no use to butt in when his wife has the floor. A "Gooseworthy came over this morning morn-ing while I was feeding the. cows, and told me a tale of woe. His wife has about five hundred female relations, aunts and stepsisters and cousins and uch people, and she keeps the house full of them all the time. He has to I sleep on a sanitary couch in the hall, J while his own feather bed is' occupied j by an aunt who weighs about 400 j pounds. He has a comfortable rocking chair he bought for 'his own private use, and now he never gets a whack at it. His wife'3 step-sister, who brought her tortoise-shell cat along, is always using it. He said he was getting get-ting plumb disgus'ted with such a condition con-dition of affairs, but he didn't know what to do. "I asked him why he didn't read the authorized version of the riot act to bis wife, and tell her to ship all those rel- ' ics out of the house. He seemed shocked at the suggestion. 'You don't know what you're talking about,' he said. 'You've never been married.' "The queer thing about it. is that Gooseworthy is a great stickler for bis j rights when he's away from home. He's j as sassy as a bobcat, and will fight at ' the drop of the hat if anybody tries to i impose on hira. He walks with his ; head back and his chest out in front of him, but as soon as he reaches his own front gate he begins to look so blamed abject that the neighbors pity him. "Then, there's old Major Sendoff. who distinguished himself on many a crimson battlefield. He lias courage enough for three regiments. But. he married the Widow Bunkum a couple of years ago and she makes him do i the family washing, and hang the clothes on the line, and I suppose be does the ironing, too. I could tell you of a hundred such cases " "I suppose you could," sighed the professor, "but I don't care for sensa- ' tioual fiction." j |