old man?  It is vain to hope for success
here—vain to hope for anything but dinner-
time. How many hours more?  Four.  If I
return home now, how shall I go on doing
nothing?  Lunch, perhaps, will help me
a little.  Quite so!  Let us say a glass of old
ale and a biscuit.  I should like to add
shrimps —if I were not afraid of my wife's
disapprobation —merely for the purpose of
trying if I could not treat them, in my small
imperfect way, as my old friend of the coasting-
vessel treated the crooked nail.

Three hours and a half to dinner-time.  I
have had my biscuit and my glass of old ale.
Not being accustomed to malt liquor in the
middle of the day, my lunch has more than
supported me,—it has fuddled me.  There is
a faint singing in my ears, an intense
sleepishness in my eyelids, a genial warmth about
my stomach, and a sensation in my head as
if the brains had oozed out of me and the
cavity of my skull was stuffed with cotton-
wool steeped in laudanum.  Not an unpleasant
feeling altogether.  I am not anxious;
I think of nothing.  I have a stolid power of
staring, immovably, out of window at the
one big ship and the two little ships, which I
had not hitherto given myself credit for
possessing.  If my wife would only push an easy-
chair up close behind me, I could sink back
in it and go to sleep; but she will do nothing
of the sort. She is putting on her bonnet:
it is the hour of the afternoon at which we
are to take each other out fondly, for our
little walk.

The company at the watering-place is
taking its little walk also at this time.  But
for the genial influence of the strong ale, I
should now be making my observations and
flying in the face of the doctor's orders by
allowing my mind to be occupied.  As it is, I
march along, slowly, lost in a solemn trance
of beer.  One circumstance only, during our
walk, is prominent enough to attract my
sleepy attention.  I just contrive to observe,
with as much surprise and regret as I am
capable of feeling at the present moment,
that my wife apparently hates all the women
we meet, and that all the women we meet, seem,
judging by their looks, to return the compliment
by hating my wife.  We pass an infinite
number of girls all more or less plump, all
more or less healthy, all more or less over-
shadowed by eccentric sea-side hats; and my
wife will not allow that any one of these
young creatures is even tolerably pretty.  The
young creatures on their side, look so
disparagingly at my wife's bonnet and gown,
that I should feel uneasy about the propriety
of her costume, if I were not under the
comforting influence of the strong ale.
What is the meaning of this unpleasant want
of harmony among the members of the fair
sex?  Does one woman hate another woman
for being a woman—is that it?  How shocking
if it is!  I have no inclination to disparage other
men whom I meet on my walk.  Other men
cast no disdainful looks on me.  We lords of the
creation are quite content to be handsome
and attractive in our various styles, without
snappishly contesting the palm of beauty with
one another.  Why cannot the women follow
our meritorious example?  Will any one
solve that curious problem in social morals?
Doctor's orders forbid me from attempting
the intellectual feat.  The dire necessity of
doing nothing narrows me to one subject of
mental contemplation—the dinner-hour.  How
long is it—now we have returned from our
walk— to that time?  Two hours and a
quarter.  I can't look out of window again,
for I know by instinct that the three ships
and the calm, grey sea are still lying in wait
for me.  I can't heave a patriot's sigh once
more over the " Death of the Earl of Chatham."
I am too tired to go out and see how
the old man of the coasting-vessel is getting
on with the crooked nail.  In short, I am
driven to my last refuge.  I must take a nap.

The nap lasts more than an hour. Its
results may be all summed up in one significant
and dreadful word—Fidgets.  I start
from the sofa convulsively, and vainly try to
walk off this scourge of humanity.  I sit down,
bolt upright in a chair; my wife is opposite
to me, calmly engaged over her work.  It
is an hour and five minutes to dinner-time.
What am I to do?  Shall I soothe the fidgets
and soften my rugged nature by looking at my
wife, to see how she gets on with her work?

She has got a strip of calico, or something
of that sort, punched all over with little
holes, and she is sowing round each little hole
with her needle and thread.  Monotonous, to
a masculine mind.  Surely the punching of
the holes must be the pleasantest part of this
style of work?  And that is done at the shop,
is it, dear ?  Ha!

Does my wife lace too tight ?  I have never
had leisure before to look at her so long and
so attentively as I am looking now; I have
been uncritically contented hitherto, to take
her waist for granted.  Now I have my
doubts about it.  I think the wife of my
bosom is a little too much like an hour-glass.
Does she digest?  Good Heavens!  How do
I know whether she digests?  Then, as to
her hair:  I do not object to the dressing of it,
but I think—strangely enough, for the first
time since our marriage—that she uses too
much bear's grease and bandoline.  I see a
thin rim of bandoline, shining just outside the
line of hair against her temples, like varnish
on a picture.  This won't do—oh, dear, no—
this won't do at all.  Will her hands do?
Certainly not!  I discover, for the first time,
that her hands won't do, either.  I am
mercifully ready to put up with their not being
quite white enough, but what does the
woman mean by having such round tips to her
fingers ?  Why don't they taper?  I always
thought they did taper until this moment.  I
begin to be dissatisfied with her; I begin
to think my wife is not the genuine article