General Rule.—No man has ever yet discovered the way to give friendly advice to any woman, not even to his own wife.
“Perhaps it’s because you are laced too tight. Women make themselves sick that way.”
The moment a man utters these words to a woman, no matter whom, that woman,—who knows that stays will bend,—seizes her corset by the lower end, and bends it out, saying, with Caroline:
“Look, you can get your hand in! I never lace tight.”
“Then it must be your stomach.”
“What has the stomach got to do with the nose?”
“The stomach is a centre which communicates with all the organs.”
“So the nose is an organ, is it?”
“Yes.”
“Your organ is doing you a poor service at this moment.” She raises her eyes and shrugs her shoulders. “Come, Adolphe, what have I done?”