"Sort of a second lieutenant," ventured Mr. Henpeck dubiously.
"Come, come," said Tom's father, "at your time of life,
There's no longer excuse for thus playing the rake.
It is time you should think, boy, of taking a wife."
"Why, so it is, father,—whose wife shall I take?"
—Thomas Moore.
The younger man had been complaining that he could not get his wife to mend his clothes.
"I asked her to sew a button on this vest last night and she hasn't touched it," he said. At this the older man assumed the air of a patriarch.