He turns to another column. "What the devil! Am I going off my
head?" He pounces on the eldest boy. "When was the Oxford and
Cambridge Boat-race?" he fiercely demands.
"The Oxford and Cambridge Boat-race!" repeats the astonished youth.
"Why, it's over. You took us all to see it, last month. The
Saturday before--"
The conversation for the next ten minutes he conducts himself,
unaided. At the end he is tired, maybe a trifle hoarse. But all his
bad temper is gone. His sorrow is there was not sufficient of it.
He could have done with more.
Woman knows nothing of simple mechanics. A woman thinks you can get
rid of steam by boxing it up and sitting on the safety-valve.
"Feeling as I do this morning, that I'd like to wring everybody's
neck for them," the average woman argues to herself; "my proper
course--I see it clearly--is to creep about the house, asking of
everyone that has the time to spare to trample on me."
She coaxes you to tell her of her faults. When you have finished she
asks for more--reminds you of one or two you had missed out. She
wonders why it is that she is always wrong. There must be a reason
for it; if only she could discover it. She wonders how it is that
people can put up with her--thinks it so good of them.
At last, of course, the explosion happens. The awkward thing is that
neither she herself nor anyone else knows when it is coming. A
husband cornered me one evening in the club.
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