The second instance was when I had been trying to reconcile Geraint and his wife. I was always very fond of dear old Geraint, and the utter misery of his married life was a source of great trouble to me. On this occasion we talked freely, and from the depths of his sore heart he brought up woe upon woe. ‘Here’s another instance,’ he said at length. ‘It’s rather ridiculous, but you won’t laugh at me, I know. Of course it’s absurd of me to have remembered it, but--well, I have. She was sitting up in bed brushing her hair, I came into the room to ask if there was anything I could bring her from town, and I happened to stand at her dressing-table and straighten my tie. We were both reflected in the mirror and she said, suddenly, with a little laugh: “What an ugly brute you are!” . . . that’s all, she said it quite politely, but--well, it hurt me absurdly, it was so devilish unnecessary. And I suppose it’s true, too, I’d never thought of it before, but I often have since. . . .’ Yet another example of how not to do it: ‘If I’m shabby,’ a despairing wife told me once, ‘he says: “Why can’t you look decent.” When I’m smart, it’s “More new clothes! I don’t know who’s going to pay for them.” If the _menu_ is exceptional he says: “This extravagance will ruin me,” and when it’s ordinary he asks: “Is that all?”’ * * * I have previously referred to men’s clubs as a boon to wives, and so they have always appeared to me. But evidently this opinion is not generally held, as a number of women have recently expressed in print their intention--when they get the vote--of agitating for complete abolition, or at least compulsorily early closing, of all men’s clubs. It seems sadly ridiculous that women should want their husbands compelled by Act of Parliament to return to them at a fixed hour. Let me endeavour to convert these misguided wives, if any of them should deign to read this book. Dear ladies, almost everything your husbands cannot get at home they can get at the club--the more completely their wants are satisfied the more pleasant they are to live with, and consequently your home is the happier! If they have a hobby, they generally join a club connected with it, or where they can meet other men similarly enslaved. Be it politics, sport, horses, cards, music, golf, or the theatre--if it is in their blood, it must come out, and sensible wives allow it to do so. A hobby suppressed means a hubby embittered. At the club they can have their rubber, or their rage against the Government; they can put half-a-sovereign in the sweep-stake, and compare notes about last night’s grand slam and their latest bunker, or whatever the term may be. At the club they can meet other men, and have a complete change both from office and home, consequently returning to both work and wife refreshed and stimulated thereby.