THE CLUB OF ABANDONED HUSBANDS
Ajax: Hullo, Socrates, what are you doing patrolling the streets at this late hour? Surely it would be more seemly to be at home?
Socrates: You speak sooth, Ajax, but I have no home to repair to.
Ajax: What do you mean by that?
Socrates: In the sense of a place of habitation, a dormitory, of course I still have a home; but it is merely an abandoned shell, a dark and silent place devoid of allure. I have sent my family to the seashore, good Ajax, and the lonely apartment, with all the blinds pulled down and nothing in the icebox, is a dismal haunt. That is why I wander upon the highway.
Ajax: I, too, have known that condition, Socrates. Two years ago Cassandra took the children to the mountains for July and August; and upon my word I had a doleful time of it. What do you say, shall we have recourse to a beaker of ginger ale and discuss this matter? It is still only the shank of the evening.
Socrates: It is well thought of.
Ajax: As I was saying, the quaint part of it was that before my wife left I had secretly thought that a period of bachelorhood would be an interesting change. I rather liked the idea of strolling about in the evenings, observing the pageant of human nature in my quiet way, dropping in at the club or the library, and mingling with my fellow men in a fashion that the husband and father does not often have opportunity to do.
Socrates: And when Cassandra went away you found yourself desolate?