Trifle! Humph! I'd like you to have a week of my experience. You
wouldn't talk any more about trifles."

"You should humour her a great deal, Harry. I am not so sure that
you are not quite as much to blame for these differences and
fallings out as she is."

" I wasn't to blame to-night, I am sure. Didn't I bring home
Prescott, thinking that she would be delighted to have me sit the
evening with her and read so charming an author? But, at the very
proposition, she flared up, and said she didn't want to hear my
musty old histories. Humph! A nice way to make a man love his home.
Better for her and me, too, I'm thinking, that she had listened to
the history, and kept her husband by her side."

"And for me, too," thought Wilkinson. "I should now, at least, be at
home with my loving-hearted wife. Ah, me!"

"Now, what am I to do, Jack--say? Give me your advice."

"The first thing for you to do is to go home, and to go at once.
Come!"

And Wilkinson made another effort to rise; but the hand of Ellis
bore him down.

"Stay, stay!" he muttered, impatiently. "Now don't be in such a
confounded hurry. Can't you talk with an old friend for a minute or
so? Look here, I've been thinking--let me see--what was I going to
say?"