"Fortunately there were no
women about. Fainting women are no novelty. And if that cur tells the
story of his dastardly assault, give him the lie. Swear that he never
said it. Persuade him that he was too drunk to remember."
"I'll follow him and threaten to horsewhip him if he opens his
mouth!" cried Colonel Belmont, who had been a dashing cavalry officer
during the war. He revered all women of his own class, even his wife,
who rarely saw him; and he was so critical of feminine perfections of
any sort that he changed his mistresses oftener than any man in San
Francisco. "I'll not lose a moment." And he left the room as if
charging the enemy.
"Good. Will the rest of you promise?"
"Of course we'll promise."
But alas, wives have means of extracting secrets when their
suspicions are alert and clamoring that no husband has the wit to
elude, man being too ingenuous to follow the circumlocutory methods
of the subtler sex. Not that there was ever anything subtle about
Mrs. Abbott's methods. Mr. Abbott had a perpetual catarrh and it had
long since weakened his fibre. It was commonly believed that when
Mrs. Abbott, her large bulk arrayed in a red flannel nightgown, sat
up in the connubial bed and threatened to pour hot mustard up his
nose unless he opened his sluices of information he ingloriously
succumbed.
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