_It wouldn’t do to let them know_, is a great phrase in every peaceful household. And it is quite true; it would never do at all. Husbands want reasons for everything and we know what that means! It is impossible to make them understand why some perfectly ordinary things cannot be done. We say, perhaps, light-heartedly enough, “I have such a headache, I wish I hadn’t to go out!” and he says, “Well, why do you go out?” Of course we reply that there is the fish to be got--it never came--and then it is his turn to say, “Why not send Ruth?” We explain that Ruth has to cook the dinner. “But she can’t cook the fish before it comes.” “But there are the other things?” “Oh, never mind them, your head is the only thing that matters. Let Ruth go.” We end by a detailed description of the cook’s afternoon and the havoc this slight disorganisation of the traffic would cause, knowing, of course, perfectly well that there is no reason why Ruth should not go except that she just can’t. Cooks don’t go for fish unless they offer to, and then they are not experienced enough. What we really want the man to do is to say he will go, but we don’t say this because it would end in his sending Ruth and thinking himself very clever. He would report that she was delighted to go and made no fuss whatever. Next day we should be made to feel that the unwritten law had been broken through our fault. We had taken a mean refuge behind the master, whose orders she could not refuse to obey. Things would be very uncomfortable for some time and she would very likely ask whether the master were going to undertake the housekeeping, because if so--etc. But it is impossible to explain all that at the time, so we are either cross because of the headache and conceal the cause, or else we are rude at once when he begins his suggestions, and then he says women are unreasonable and ought to take more exercise. I seem always to be exploding fallacies in this book, but there is one more which must be mentioned because it is connected with the husband fallacy. It is part of Mrs. Beehive’s whisker make-up. This is the fallacy of the Experienced Man. I have never yet seen a man who gave me the impression of being in the least experienced in anything more important than the details of his own business. In matters of life and death he is as hopeful at eighty as he was at eight. James still says to me: “What a good plan it would be to share a house for the summer with the Van Diemans. You see, they would not be in our way in the least; they would have rooms to themselves, we needn’t see them unless we want to. He would be there to fish and play golf with me, and you would be left with her. She would probably do the housekeeping for you.”