He was an aged chap of much red nose, my boy, and lived with his youngest broadcloth son in the same house with his Wayward Sister. The Wayward Sister being an old maid of severe countenance, occupied such portions of the residence as seemed most safe from the intrusion of that sex which seeks to make Woman its broken-hearted slave; and as long as the patient old chap answered the door-bell and didn't smoke in the house, she got along with him after the manner of a Methodist angel. Things went on pleasantly through the winter, the high-minded maiden using the coal of her aged kindred, and employing all his black tea without complaining; but in the spring she joined a Woman's Rights Convention, and commenced to hold indignation-meetings of virtuously-indignant females in the best room in the house. These meetings having decided, that,
"Whereas, Man is a ojus creature which is constantly preying upon that sex which it is his mother's, and denying to it those inalienable Rights without which Woman's sphere cannot exist. Therefore be it
"Resolved, That Woman is the Superior Sex.
"Resolved, That union with man is incompatible with the good of a sex which it is ourselves; and that we will immediately take that household furniture of which Woman is the only rightful owner, and only ask to be let alone."
The aged chap received a copy of these resolutions, my boy, and says the Wayward Sister: "I can no longer consent to live in the same house with an inferior being." The chap heard her in silence, and might have let her have her own way, under ordinary circumstances, but when he came home next night he found that she had packed up all the furniture in the house to carry off with her, and expected him to give her his watch and night-key. He scratched his head, and says he: "I cannot permit this sort of thing, because I really want some furniture for my own use." The Wayward Sister threw her thimble at him, and says she: "Our male parient bought this furniture only because he got married to one of the Superior Sex; and as it was Woman which solely occasioned its purchase, it clearly belongs to Woman."
But the chap could not see it in this light, my boy; and as soon as his son came home he told him all about it. The manly youth took a look up the stairs to where the maiden and four or five other spring bonnets were intrenched behind the furniture, and says he:
"It's an unnatural thing to have trouble with relations; but I'm just going up there to capture that big chair."
By this time some of the neighbors had come in, and commenced to urge the old chap to take vigorous measures. He looked at his son, and says he:
"Can you do it Tommy?"
The child of his bosom winked twice, and immediately prepared to perform the feat, only pausing long enough to look in the glass and see if his necktie sat well. Then, gaining the head of the stairs, he leaned across a bureau barring the way, and was about to grasp the big chair, when the Wayward Sister hit him over the head with a broom, and presently he found himself prostrate at the foot of the stairs, with a violent pain in his nose.