On that occasion, to the best of our belief, the policeman contented himself with depositing Mrs. Mackenzie at her own lodgings. On the next day she was picked up drunk in the street, and carried away to the lock-up house. At the very moment in which the story was being told to us by Mrs. Grimes, Mackenzie had gone to the police office to pay the fine, and to bring his wife home. We asked with dismay and surprise why he should interfere to rescue her--why he did not leave her in custody as long as the police would keep her? “Who’d there be to look after the children?” asked Mrs. Grimes, as though she were offended at our suggestion. Then she went on to explain that in such a household as that of poor Mackenzie the wife is absolutely a necessity, even though she be an habitual drunkard. Intolerable as she was, her services were necessary to him. “A husband as drinks is bad,” said Mrs. Grimes,--with something, we thought, of an apologetic tone for the vice upon which her own prosperity was partly built,--“but when a woman takes to it, it’s the ---- devil.” We thought that she was right, as we pictured to ourselves that man of letters satisfying the magistrate’s demand for his wife’s misconduct, and taking the degraded, half-naked creature once more home to his children. We saw him about twelve o’clock on that day, and he had then, too evidently, been endeavouring to support his misery by the free use of alcohol. We did not speak of it down in the parlour; but even Mrs. Grimes, we think, would have admitted that he had taken more than was good for him. He was sitting up in the bed-room with his head hanging upon his hand, with a swarm of our learned friend’s papers spread on the table before him. Mrs. Grimes, when he entered the house, had gone up stairs to give them out to him; but he had made no attempt to settle himself to his work. “This kind of thing must come to an end,” he said to us with a thick, husky voice. We muttered something to him as to the need there was that he should exert a manly courage in his troubles. “Manly!” he said. “Well, yes; manly. A man should be a man, of course. There are some things which a man can’t bear. I’ve borne more than enough, and I’ll have an end of it.”