was a fine trout stream, to which my wife and myself used occasionally
to go on a fishing excursion. On such occasions we went on horseback,
as the road was somewhat rough, and my wife was as much at home in the
saddle as I was. This, I repeat, was a good while ago, and we were
both a score of years younger than we are now. Well, I started out
alone one day to visit this trout stream, anticipating a good time
with its speckled, and usually greedy inhabitants. I say I was alone,
and yet there was with me, all the way, and all the time, one who can
talk, reason, philosophise, understand things as well as you or I; and
one, to all appearance, as much and distinctly human as you or I."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Smith, "we can't go that, Doctor. I can't
stand my quarter of that."

"Foolish man!" continued the Doctor; "I say I was alone; let me
demonstrate my proposition. Blackstone says, and what he says every
lawyer will concede is the end of the law, and the beginning too, for
that matter, that when a woman becomes a wife, she loses her identity,
becomes nobody; that her husband absorbs her existence, as it were, as
he does her goods and chattels, in his own. Now, sir, do you
comprehend? My wife was with me, and she, being according to law
nobody, of course I was alone. You, sir, being a law abiding man, must
admit that my proposition is Q.E.D.

"The doctrine of absorption, as I call it, is convenient. It promotes
harmony of action, by subjecting it to the control of a single will,
thus avoiding all embarrassment from a conflict of opinion between man
and wife. So, on my way to the trout stream (I say _my_ way, for
though my wife was on horseback by my side, yet she being, according
to the best legal authorities, nobody, you see I was alone), I thought