should not allow them to bring canned flower gardens into the cars
with them, and in that I have the support of every free born American
citizen.

* * * * *

While I was away I learned a secret that is worth a good deal of money
to any young man intending marriage, and that would have been without
price to me if I had known it thirty years ago--before I knew the
estimable woman, who, in company, insists that I am her better-half,
and in private treats me as if I were hardly a sixteenth. I learned
it at sea. Just before we sailed out of a port one afternoon a couple
came down to the wharf, which consisted of a very large and fine-looking
young woman and very small young man, who carried himself with much
meekness. Why will little men marry big women? They looked like they
had not been long married. When they came on board she was the captain
and he ranked about cook. When they got off, forty-eight hours after,
he ranked as admiral and she ranked about a hand before the mast. When
they got on board, she called him William, and he called her "Maria
dear." When they got off she called him "Willie dear," and he called
her plain "Maria." When they came to supper she was the man of the
two--two hours after, she was laid out on the deck benches, vowing
every minute that she would die. From that moment he commenced advancing
in rank. He was not subject to seasickness, and walked the plunging
deck like a bantam rooster. In a firm voice he ordered her to her
state-room, where she remained till the evening of the next day. She
came out a changed woman. She evidently viewed "Willie dear" as a
superior being, whom the sea itself couldn't conquer, and whose
attentions to her in her sickness--which I am bound to add were kind
and unremitting--were such as such beings bestow in charity on mortals