"Well, sir, I brung in that pie, an' I set it on the table, an' I chirped out that dinner was ready, an' he come, an'--my dear! You never saw such goins'-on in all your born days! Considerin' that not eatin' animals makes people's dispositions mild an' pleasant, it was sunthin' terrible, an' me all the time as innercent as a lamb! "I can't begin to tell you the things my new-made husband said to me. If chickens an' oysters was human, I'll bet they'd have sued him for slander. He said that oysters was 'the scavengers of the sea'--yes'm, them's his very words, an' that chickens was even worse. He went on to tell me how they et worms an' potato bugs an' beetles an' goodness knows what else, an' that he wa'n't goin' to turn the temple of his body into no slaughter-house. He asked me if I desired to eat dead animals, an' when he insisted on an answer, I told him I certainly shouldn't care to eat 'em less'n they _was_ dead, and from then on it was worse 'n ever. "He said that no dead animal was goin' to be interred in the insides of him or his lawful wife, an' he was goin' to see to it. It come out then that he'd never tasted meat an' hadn't rightly sensed what he was missin'. "Well, my dear, some women would have took the wrong tack an' would have argyfied with him. There's never no use in argyfyin' with a husband, an' never no need to, 'cause if you're set on it, there's all the rest of the world to choose from. When he'd talked himself hoarse an' was beginnin' to calm down again, I took the floor. "'Say no more,' says I, calm an' collected-like. 'This here is your house an' the things you're accustomed to eatin' can be cooked in it, no matter what they be. If I don't know how to put the slops together, I reckon I can learn, not being a plum idjit. If you want baked chicken feed and boiled hay, I'm here to bake 'em and boil 'em for you. All you have to do is to speak once in a polite manner and it'll be done. I must insist on the politeness, howsumever,' says I. 'I don't propose to live with any man what gets the notion a woman ceases to be a lady when she marries him. A creeter that thinks so poor of himself as that ain't fit to be my husband,' says I, 'nor no other decent woman's.' "At that he apologised some, an' when a husband apologises, my dear, it's the same as if he'd et dirt at your feet. 'The least said the soonest mended,' says I, an' after that, he never had nothin' to complain of. "But I knowed what his poor, cranky system needed, an' I knowed how to get it into him, especially as he'd never tasted meat in all his life. From that time on, he never saw no meat on our table, nor no chickens, nor sea scavengers, nor nothin', but all day, while he was gone, I was busy with my soup pot, a-makin' condensed extracts of meat for flavourin' vegetables an' sauces an' so on.