"For which," replied Mr. Tutt, "you may well be thankful."
"I am," replied Tutt devoutly. "But you could put what I know about bigamy in that malt-extract bottle."
"I prefer the present contents!" retorted Mr. Tutt. "Bigamy is a fascinating crime, involving as it does such complicated subjects as the history of the institution of marriage, the ecclesiastical or canonical law governing divorce and annulment, the interesting doctrines of affinity and consanguinity, suits for alienation of affection and criminal conversation, the conflict of laws, the White Slave Act—"
"Interstate commerce, so to speak?" suggested Tutt mischievously.
"Condonation, collusion and connivance," continued Mr. Tutt, brushing him aside, "reinstitution of conjugal rights, the law of feme sole, The Married Woman's Act, separation a mensa et thoro, abandonment, jurisdiction, alimony, custody of children, precontract—"
"Help! You're breaking my heart!" cried Tutt. "No little lawyer could know all about such things. It would take a big lawyer."
"Not at all! Not at all!" soothed Mr. Tutt, sipping his eleven-o'clock nourishment and fingering for a stogy. "When it comes to divorce one lawyer knows as much about the law as another. Not even the Supreme Court is able to tell whether a man and woman are really married or not without calling in outside assistance."
"Well, who can?" asked Tutt anxiously.
"Nobody," replied his partner with gravity, biting off the end of a last year's stogy salvaged from the bottom of the letter basket. "Once a man's married his troubles not only begin but never end."
"By the way," said Tutt, "speaking of this sort of thing, I see that that Frenchman whom we referred to our Paris correspondent has just been granted a divorce from his American wife."