But, whichever view is right, the ordeal by divorce is terrifying enough to the poor sinners or martyrs who must undergo it.
Little Jimmie Wellington turned pale, and stammered, as he tried to ask the conductor casually:
"What kind of a place is that Reno?"
The conductor, somewhat cynical from close association with the divorce-mill and its grist, grinned: "That depends on what you're leaving behind. Most folks seem to get enough of it in about six months."
Then he went his way, leaving Wellington red, agape and perplexed. The trouble with Wellington was that he had brought along what he was leaving behind. Or, as Ashton impudently observed: "You ought to enjoy your residence there, Wellington, with your wife on hand."
The only repartee that Wellington could think of was a rather uninspired: "You go to ——."
"So long as it isn't Reno," Ashton laughed, and walked away.
Wedgewood laid a sympathetic hand on Little Jimmie's shoulder, and said:
"That Ashton is no end of a bounder, what?"
Wellington wrote his epitaph in these words: