I knew a woman—a wise and good woman she was—who when she noticed that her husband’s temper was causing him annoyance, took pains to help him to get rid of it. To relieve his sufferings I have known her search the house for a last month’s morning paper and, ironing it smooth, lay it warm and neatly folded on his breakfast plate. “One thing in this world to be thankful for, at all events, and that is that we don’t live in Ditchley-in-the-Marsh,” he would growl ten minutes later from the other side of it. “Sounds a bit damp,” the good woman would reply. “Damp!” he would grunt, “who minds a bit of damp! Good for you. Makes us Englishmen what we are. Being murdered in one’s bed about once a week is what I should object to.” “Do they do much of that sort of thing down there?” the good woman would enquire. “Seems to be the chief industry of the place. Do you mean to say you don’t remember that old maiden lady being murdered by her own gardener and buried in the fowl-run? You women! you take no interest in public affairs.” “I do remember something about it, now you mention it, dear,” the good woman would confess. “Always seems such an innocent type of man, a gardener.” “Seems to be a special breed of them at Ditchley-in-the-Marsh,” he answers. “Here again last Monday,” he continues, reading with growing interest. “Almost the same case—even to the pruning knife. Yes, hanged if he doesn’t!—buries her in the fowl-run. This is most extraordinary.” “It must be the imitative instinct asserting itself,” suggests the good woman. “As you, dear, have so often pointed out, one crime makes another.” “I have always said so,” he agrees; “it has always been a theory of mine.” He folds the paper over. “Dull dogs, these political chaps!” he says. “Here’s the Duke of Devonshire, speaking last night at Hackney, begins by telling a funny story he says he has just heard about a parrot. Why, it’s the same story somebody told a month ago; I remember reading it. Yes—upon my soul—word for word, I’d swear to it. Shows you the sort of men we’re governed by.” “You can’t expect everyone, dear, to possess your repertoire,” the good woman remarks. “Needn’t say he’s just heard it that afternoon, anyhow,” responds the good man. He turns to another column. “What the devil! Am I going off my head?” He pounces on the eldest boy. “When was the Oxford and Cambridge Boat-race?” he fiercely demands. “The Oxford and Cambridge Boat-race!” repeats the astonished youth. “Why, it’s over. You took us all to see it, last month. The Saturday before—” The conversation for the next ten minutes he conducts himself, unaided. At the end he is tired, maybe a trifle hoarse. But all his bad temper is gone. His sorrow is there was not sufficient of it. He could have done with more. Woman knows nothing of simple mechanics. A woman thinks you can get rid of steam by boxing it up and sitting on the safety-valve.