228 SPORTS AND ANECDOTES. 



tidy, were now quite the reverse, and looked dirty, 

 slovenly, unwashed, and squalid. 



Poor Carl, who in happier days was wont to find 

 all his little comforts attended to, his breakfast ready, 

 for him before he began his work, his dinner ready 

 for him when he left of! work, now found all these 

 little matters more or less neglected. His stockings 

 were full of holes, his shirts without buttons, and 

 everything that required mending was now left to 

 take care of itself ;: in fact, through his wife's ill-health 

 he was no longer looked after as of old, and his 

 children of whom he was very fond were sharing the 

 same fate. What was to be done in such a case ? 

 The constant discomfort of such a life began to prey 

 upon him, he became downcast and morose. " The 

 constant dropping of water will wear away a stone," 

 they say, and so it was in his case, day by day matters 

 got worse, and he was at his wits' end. The wife who 

 was once his comfort had now become his discomfort, 

 and turn which way he would he saw no hopes of 

 a better state of things, her health would most pro- 

 bably not improve, and if such was the case he could 

 hardly expect that she would be more attentive to 

 his and the children's requirements, and the apathy 

 and carelessness which had taken possession of her 



