The queen of the household, who had been nursing her rage, met him at the door with a face like a drawn tomahawk; and the clock struck one, and she struck, too, as he entered.
“How dare you come home to me at this hour of the night?” she shouted in her anger.
“Why, my dear, it was jis’ ten o’clock when I left prayer meetin’, an’ I come right straight home.”
“Yes, prayer meeting! You look like prayer meeting! Look at the hands on the dial of that clock; it has just struck one.”
“Well, now, madam,” he said, “if you propose to believe a durned little dollar-and-a-half clock before you’ll believe your husband, that’s all right; but I shall certainly think that I have not found the amiable spirit in this palace of love which I expected to find on my arrival.”
And the threads of love popped, and the loom stopped for several hours.
An uncrowned old King went to his little palace one night under the influence of King Alcohol, as usual. His unhappy wife let him in at the door and burst into tears and said:
“Husband, why do you come home every night in this drunken condition?”
“Why,” he said, “my dear, you are so pretty that I jist naturally love to look at you double!”