Knowing that he had taken his 'lovey dovey' from a home where she always breakfasted in bed, the devoted husband felt it his duty to make life as pleasant as possible for her; yet the position of butler and maid combined was not pleasing to his manly spirit. Still he liked to be obliging, and he continued to do her bidding. Between the basement kitchen and the sleeping-room of the young couple, two flights of stairs intervened, and it seemed never to occur to the mistress of the household that it was a hardship for any one save herself to go up and down these stairs a dozen times in a brief space of time on errands for her comfort. The husband prospered, and engaged two more domestics for his wife. But with increased service her demands increased--and confusion instead of order reigned. Maids were called to the top floor on trivial errands, while they were engaged in duties in the basement, and they were sent to the corner box to mail letters, to the grocery store, or the chemist's, or on errands a half-dozen times a day. When they could not go, or when they were not there, 'darling husband' was commissioned to be errand-boy. He was seldom enabled to finish his cigar or read his paper in the evening without being asked to go up or down stairs, to bring a chair, shawl, or book, or a box of bonbons for his wife's pleasure, or to run to the corner to get something she needed. He became skilled in the work of a lady's maid in the continual demand made upon him to assist his wife in fastening her gowns. After three years the situation in which the young man found himself began to prey upon his mind. For it grew worse instead of better. 'I am no longer a manly man,' he said to himself, 'I am not the head of a house; I am an employé of a pretty woman. I am a combination of lackey, valet, butler, head waiter, and maid of all work. I haven't even a half day or an evening off; not a regular weekly time I can call my own, as most domestics have--I am going to strike.' But when he made his first protest his wife became hysterical and sent for her mother. The mother said the husband was a brute to refuse to bring up the breakfast tray to a poor delicate woman, who had an inefficient and inconsiderate servant. Any man with half a heart, she said, would have shown sympathy and kindness in such a situation. One word led to another, until a very unpleasant condition of things existed in the household. He told the mother-in-law that it was her daughter's fault that she could never keep a servant; that servants would leave when they were imposed upon and overworked, and that it might, in time, be possible for a husband to leave unless greater consideration was shown in the small matters of daily life.