"'Hallo!' said I, 'I give up the point. I take back all I said. _Culpa
mea_, my good wife. If Blackstone does say'--

"'Not a word more about Blackstone,' said she, shaking her whip, half
serious half playfully, at me; 'if I go with you, I go as somebody--a
legal entity.'

"'Very well,' said I, 'we'll drop the argument.'

"'Not the argument, but the fact, Mr. W----; and admit that Blackstone
was a goose, and that his law, like his logic, is all nonsense when
measured by the standard of common sense and practical fact. Admit
that a woman, when she becomes a wife does not become a mere
nonentity, or I leave you to journey alone.'

"'Very well, my dear, let us see if we cannot compromise this matter.
Suppose we allow his philosophy to stand as a general truth, making
you an exception. We'll say that wives in general are nobody, but that
you shall be exempt from the general rule, and be considered always
hereafter, and as between ourselves, as somebody.'

"You see the shrewdness of my proposition. Firstly, it saved
Blackstone; secondly, it saved _me_, let me down easy; and thirdly, it
appealed to the womanly vanity of my wife, and it took.

"'Oh, well,' she said, as she brought her pony alongside of me, and we
jogged along cosily together, 'I see no objection to that. Other wives
can take care of themselves. But this compromise, as between _us_, Mr.
W----, must be a _finality_. No Nebraska traps, Mr. W----. No Kansas