No one but a henpecked husband who may happen to be shut up in prison with his wife, can appreciate the horror of the situation in which I now found myself placed. The gout prevented my escaping, even for a moment, from the sway of my spouse; she truly had me tied to her apron-string, and, as I may say, by a cord that went round my sore foot. I was a martyr to two of the greatest ills that ever afflicted a son of Adam; and the two together were not to be borne. Either, if alone, I might perhaps have tolerated, in consideration of the many good things that marked my lot. I might have endured the gout, if I had had a wife who, instead of scolding at me, would have suffered me, as a good wife should, to do all the scolding myself; or I might even have submitted to the tyranny of my Margaret, had I been able to beat a retreat when I grew tired of it. But my wife and the gout together were not to be borne by any human being: they set me, after a while, quite distracted. What pleasure had I in being the rich John H. Higginson? It was in vain that my brother-in-law, Tim (who, it appears, was the junior partner and factotum in the brewery, as well as manager-general of my affairs), bragged to me of the astonishing rise in my property, and declared I was already worth a hundred thousand dollars; in the midst of my exultation I heard my wife's voice on the stairs, and my joy oozed out of the hair of my head. I could only look at Tim and groan, and Tim did the same; for, poor fellow, though only her brother, he was as much henpecked as myself. "Never mind," said Tim, consolatorily; "your foot will be well by-and-by, and then we shall have a jolly time together." But my comforter took great care on such occasions to sneak out of the house in good time, and so leave me to bear the evil by myself. In the course of two weeks, or thereabouts, my foot had so far recovered that I was able to put it on the ground, and hobble about a little with a crutch; but I had lost all hope of ever being able to resume my exercises in the field. I was therefore reduced to despair; and my wife becoming more intolerable every day, I began to be so weary of existence, that I was once or twice on the point of making away with myself.