Into a bus we got, and out of it we got, in course of time. We went up and down and in and out and roundabout, seeing the sights and doing the town like many another couple had done before us, and will do again during that most awkward of seasons, the honeymoon.
While my spouse gazed in at some lovely silks, sweet feathers, and ducks of bonnets, unmindful of the troubles that Moses underwent in obtaining the latter part of the Decalogue, I took the opportunity of instilling some legal doctrines and decisions into her head.
“Remember,” I said, “the solemn words of the poet:
‘Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.’”
“I fear that a woman like myself will have to wait very long before she gets her little wants supplied,” she saucily interjected.
“I was about to remark,” I sternly continued, “that if you are very extravagant in your wardrobe and tastes, I will not be liable to pay all your little bills. Once upon a time an English judge decided that a milliner could not make a husband pay £5,287 for bonnets, laces, feathers and ribbons supplied to his dear little wife during a few months.”[62]
“No power on earth could make you pay that sum, or anything like it; so don’t worry yourself, my darling,” coolly and somewhat sarcastically remarked Mrs. Lawyer.
“Please do not interrupt. In another case it was held that the price of a sea-side suit, some £67, could not be collected from a husband—a poor barrister—who had forbidden his wife to go to the watering place.”[63]
“He must have been a very poor lawyer if he never had a suit that cost more to some unfortunate client.”
“Again, the Rev. Mr. Butcher”——