They grew more and more tender--two put their arms around me and pinioned me, while the other fifteen drew large shears from their pockets, and, under pretence of getting a lock of hair for each, they left me as bare as a goose-egg. Indians couldn't have scalped me closer. I made Samson-like my escape from these Delilahs by stratagem. I assured them that I was sickening for the measles, which, like love, is always the more fatal the later it comes in life. I also told them that my friend Hingston was a much better looking man than I was; also that he was an Englishman, and that, according to that nation's creed, every Englishman is equal to five Americans and five hundred Frenchmen: consequently there would be some to spare of him. This happy thought saved me. I was let off upon solemnly promising to deliver Hingston into their arms, bound, Laocoon-like, by the serpent spells of their charms, or, like Regulus, potted and preserved in a barrel of fingernails, for their especial scratching. Hingston, little dreaming of the sale I had made of him, went on the pretended errand of conveying to these seventeen beauties a farewell bouquet. Poor fellow! that is the last I ever saw of him--he was never heard of again. The gentleman who acts as my manager is somebody else. I must ask the indulgence of the audience for twenty minutes, while I drop a few tears to his memory. (Here Artemus holds his head over a barrel, and the distinct dripping of a copious shower is heard.) As I feel a little better, I will recommence my lecture--I don't mean to defend Mormonism--indeed, I have no hesitation in affirming, and I affirm it boldly, and I would repeat the observation to my own wife's face, if I had one, but as I haven't one, I'll say it boldly to every other man's wife, that I don't think it wise to marry more than one wife at a time, without it is done to oblige the ladies, and then it should be done sparingly, and not oftener than three times a day, for the marriage ceremony isn't lightly to be repeated. But I want to tell you what Brigham Young observed to me. "Artemus, my boy," said he, "you don't know how often a man marries against his will. Let me recite one case out of a hundred that has happened to myself. About three months ago a family arrived here-- they were from Hoboken--everybody knows how beautiful the Jersey girls are--with the exception of applejack, they are the nicest things Jersey produces. Well, this family consisted of four daughters, a mother and two grandmothers, one with teeth, the other without. I took a fancy to the youngest of the girls, and proposed. After considerable reflection she said: 'I can't think of marrying you without you marry my three sisters as well.'