And yet he started at a more humorous level than anybody else could have attained. In the first place (he said) he must apologize for speaking at all. It was all Mrs. W.'s fault. As everybody knew, he was not allowed to get a word in edgeways at home (smiles)--led a dog's life, in fact (more smiles)--indeed, as he had said to his old friend Charlie Cutbush only the other day, Charlie Cutbush, who used to travel for Dwu Mawr Whisky and now kept "The Silent Woman" in the Borough, "Charlie," he had said, "you ought to get that sign o' yours altered--it ought to be a man with his head cut off, not a woman!" (A little more laughter, and a gallant remark from Cosimo to the speaker's wife that at any rate Mr. Wellcome looked well on it). But to get on (Mr. Wellcome continued). As they all knew, there was a good deal of giving in connexion with weddings. In his own time at Glenerne it had always been a bit of a puzzle where Miss Addams put 'em all to sleep; but they all knew now where Mrs. Deschamps slept, and a pretty little room it was, and its occupant lots of time before her yet (quite a sudden outburst of mirth at this, and confusion and a cry of "Wretch!" from Mrs. Deschamps). Tut-tut!--What Mr. Wellcome meant to say, if they'd be quiet a bit and not jump down his throat like that, was that they'd all been into Mrs. Deschamps' room to see the wedding-presents. (Laughter.) Now Mr. Wellcome wasn't going to say they weren't, one and all, very handsome wedding-presents, especially Miss Addams's oak-and-silver biscuit-box and the embroidered quilt given by Mrs. Deschamps herself (but Mr. Wellcome would have a word to say to his old friend George Massey, about the comparative inefficacy of embroidered quilts when your feet were really cold, by and by.) (More laughter.) But what Mr. Wellcome _was_ going to say, and he'd say it twice if anybody didn't hear it the first time, was that he'd been giving something away that morning that he hoped and trusted his old friend George would find worth more than all the rest put together--a bonny bride. (Loud applause, and an instant recognition of their error on the part of those who had thought that a humorist couldn't on occasion be serious too.) Mr. Wellcome repeated: a bonnie bride. Mr. Wellcome didn't mean that they didn't all joke about these things sometimes. He did himself, and so would George Massey be doing by and by. But he _did_ say this about marriage, and he spoke as a man who had been married more years than he cared to remember: that there was nothing like it. (Cries of "Hear, hear!" from married and unmarried alike, and a noisy drumming of knives and hands on the table.) And while Mr. Wellcome was about it he was going to say something else. There seemed to be people about who thought themselves very wise nowadays. They wanted this changed and that changed; Mr. Wellcome didn't know what they did want, and he didn't think they themselves did either; sometimes it seemed to him