"Such a thing never happened to him yet, Harry," said Mrs. Burton.

"Gently with the pepper," said the editor. It was the first word he had
spoken for some time.

"Be good enough to remember that, yourself, when you are writing your
article to-night."

"No, none for me, Theodore, said Mrs. Burton.

"Cissy!"

"I have dined really. If I had remembered that you were going to display
your cookery, I would have kept some of my energy, but I forgot it."

"As a rule," said Burton, "I don't think women recognize any difference
in flavors. I believe wild duck and hashed mutton would be quite the
same to my wife if her eyes were blinded. I should not mind this, if it
were not that they are generally proud of the deficiency. They think it
grand."

"Just as men think it grand not to know one tune from another," said his
wife.

When dinner was over, Burton got up from his seat. "Harry," said he, "do
you like good wine?" Harry said that he did. Whatever women may say
about wild fowl, men never profess an indifference to good wine,
although there is a theory about the world, quite as incorrect as it is
general, that they have given up drinking it. "Indeed I do," said Harry.
"Then I'll give you a bottle of port," said Burton, and so saying he