mahogany feel any obligation to our braggart entertainer.

After he has given one of his great heavy dinners he always takes an
opportunity to tell you, in the most public way, how many bottles of
wine were drunk. His pleasure is to make his guests tipsy, and to
tell everybody how and when the period of inebriation arose. And Miss
Clapperclaw tells me that he often comes over laughing and giggling
to her, and pretending that he has brought ME into this condition--a
calumny which I fling contemptuously in his face.

He scarcely gives any but men's parties, and invites the whole club home
to dinner. What is the compliment of being asked, when the whole club is
asked too, I should like to know? Men's parties are only good for boys.
I hate a dinner where there are no women. Bragg sits at the head of his
table, and bullies the solitary Mrs. Bragg.

He entertains us with stories of storms which he, Bragg, encountered--of
dinners which he, Bragg, has received from the Governor-General of
India--of jokes which he, Bragg, has heard; and however stale or odious
they may be, poor Mrs. B. is always expected to laugh.

Woe be to her if she doesn't, or if she laughs at anybody else's jokes.
I have seen Bragg go up to her and squeeze her arm with a savage grind
of his teeth, and say, with an oath, "Hang it, madam, how dare you laugh
when any man but your husband speaks to you? I forbid you to grin in
that way. I forbid you to look sulky. I forbid you to look happy, or to
look up, or to keep your eyes down to the ground. I desire you will not
be trapesing through the rooms. I order you not to sit as still as
a stone." He curses her if the wine is corked, or if the dinner is
spoiled, or if she comes a minute too soon to the club for him, or