Life — November 4, 1915 — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

OR a very long time I had kept it Fee away in a bottom drawer. It was on my Uncle William's ad- vice that I had acquired it as part of my honeymoon outfit. He even went so far as to choose the pattern for me himself. “There are two essential ingredients in a honeymoon,” he told me; “one is a sea view, which I al- ways recommend as a sedative; the other is a very loud suit of tweeds, the reason for which you will dis- cover later on.” Looking back, I have often wondered what entitled my uncle to pose as an authority on the subject, for so far as any of us know he personally has never been married. In any case, during ten years I never wore the suit more than once, and then only for a few minutes, On my appearing in it on the fifth day after our wedding my wife for the first time put her foot down and refused to accompany me outside our private apartments. It was in vain that I remonstrated. I must choose, she said, between her and my check suit. I pointed out very gently and reasonably that it had cost £4 1os., but she countered by throwing her arms round my neck and demanding with tears if I really loved her. To this there was, of course, but one reply, and when a little later we wandered down to the shore together I was at- tired in my usual morning flannels. On our return to civilization one of the first persons I met was my Un- , cle William. He looked at me search- ingly. “Well,” he said. “Well?” I replied a little defiantly. Something in his manner made me feel rather uncomfortable, “Did you wear them?” he asked. “Wear what? “The tweeds.” “Not often,” I confessed. “We found—I mean, I found that I didn’t care very much for them after all.” “Poor boy, poor boy!” he mur- mured, and, shaking his head sadly, he turned and walked away. & “LIFE: The Check Suit By Richard Dark For several years my wife and I have lived happily together. Married men may be divided into two classes —those who have and those who have not discovered how to manage their wives. You may recognize the for- mer class by their general air of con- tentment and well-being and by their steadily increasing physical circum- ference. Methods’ of management vary. Among certain savage tribes I believe the use of the cudgel is much in vogue, while even in our own coun- try recourse was frequently had, in the good old days, to the ducking-stool. From such aids to harmony, however, the modern Englishman is debarred. He has accordingly to resort to other means of securing the desired end. Now I am not, I trust, a vain man. I may or I may not be possessed of rather more than an average share of mental acumen; it is not for me to say. But at any rate I have always prided myself on what I may call my intuitive grasp of a situation, and at a very early stage of our married career I decided, calmly and delib- erately, that the best way of manag- ing my wife was to agree with her whenever it was humanly possible to do so, and sometimes when it was not. It has proved an excellent policy in every way. When the war broke out it soon became apparent to us that we must economize. Personally, I was inclined to think that a start might be made by reducing our staff of servants from two to one, but my wife said this would merely swell the numbers of the unemployed, so we began by changing my season ticket from a sec- ond to a third and by discontinuing my subscription to the local golf club. I also sold my motor bicycle, an ob- vious luxury. In the spring my wife broached the question of dress “There is no doubt about it,” she said, “that the ordinary man spends far too much on his clothes. I have been thinking that this year, instead of buying a new suit for the city, you might wear out those tweeds you got when we were married.” * I confess I was a little stunned. As. I said before, the suit had not been even originally of my own choosing, and while its exuberant pattern might ten years ago have been not altogether out of keeping with the wild honey- moon scenery of North Wales, I felt that as the every-day attire of a sober business man in his forty-second year it would probably attract unfavorable comment. “Why not sell it?” I suggested. “My dear Horace,” said my wife, “what do you suppose they would give you for it?” The suit had to be altered before I could get into it, but a week later I wore it to the city under a mackintosh. On my arrival at the office I encoun- tered the chief, looking very de- pressed. Since the outbreak of hostili- ties things had been going badly with the firm in which I have hopes of securing a junior partnership, and our country orders in particular had dwin- dled to an alarming extent. As his eye fell on me it brightened perceptibly, “Hullo!” he exclaimed. “Have we had a victory?” “Not that I am aware of,” I replied. “What does this mean, then?” he asked, pointing a little rudely, as I thought, at my suit. T explained. He looked at me thought- fully for a moment or two, then took me into his private room and rang the bell. “Has Mr. Jones left for Bristol?” he asked when the boy appeared. Jones is our west of England traveler. “No, sir.” sk him to see me at onc When Jones entered the chief in- formed him that his services as a traveler would for the present be no longer required, but he offered him work on the clerical staff at an equal salary. Jones, who has been with us for several years, appeared slightly puz- zled by the decision, but finally he acquiesced and left the room. comicbooks.com