I don’t suppose I can blame Maria under all the circumstances for standing up for the various members of her family when they are attacked, which she does with much vigorous and at times aggressive loyalty.  We cannot always help ourselves in the matter of our relations.  Some are born relatives, some achieve relatives, and others have relatives thrust upon them.  Maria was born to hers, and according to all the rules of the game she’s got to like them, nay, even cherish and protect them against the slings and arrows of outrageous criticism.  But, on the other hand, I think she ought to remember that while I achieved some of them with my eyes open, the rest were thrust upon me when I was defenceless, and when I find some difficulty in adapting myself to circumstances, as is frequently the case, she should be more lenient to my incapacity.  The fact that I am a lawyer makes it necessary for me to toe the mark of respect for the authority of the courts all day, whether I am filled with contempt for the court or not, and it is pretty hard to find, when I return home at night, that another set of the judiciary in the form of Maria’s family, a sort of domestic supreme court, controls all my private life, so that except when I am rambling through the fields alone, or am taking my bath in the morning, I cannot give my feelings full and free expression without disturbing the family entente; and there isn’t much satisfaction in skinning people to a lonesome cow, or whispering your indignant sentiments into the ear of a sponge already soaked to the full with cold water.  I have tried all my married life to agree with every member of the family in everything he, she, or it has said, but, now that this Goward business has come up, I can’t do that, because every time anybody says “Booh” to anybody else in the family circle, regarding this duplex love-affair, a family council is immediately called and “Booh” is discussed, not only from every possible stand-point, but from several impossible ones as well.

When that letter of Goward’s was rescued from the chewing-gum contingent, with its address left behind upon the pulpy surface of Sidney Tracy’s daily portion of peptonized-paste, it was thought best that I should call upon the writer at his hotel and find out to whom the letter was really written.

My own first thought was to seek out Sidney Tracy and see if the superscription still remained on the chewing-gum, and I had the good-fortune to meet the boy on my way to the hotel, but on questioning him I learned that in the excitement of catching a catfish, shortly after Alice had left the lads, Sidney had incontinently swallowed the rubber-like substance, and nothing short of an operation for appendicitis was likely to put me in possession of the missing exhibit.  So I went on to the hotel, and ten minutes later found myself in the presence of an interesting case of nervous prostration.  Poor Goward!  When I observed the wrought-up condition of his nerves, I was immediately