186 
ALMOST HUMAN 
and body simultaneously, and then their gradual emergence is curiously 
balloon-like. They live in their ponds for hours at a time, winter and 
summer. When together in the same pond they play with one another 
most happily. Under water, above it, around its banks, they chase 
and run, dive and rise, showing an agility that is surprising when their 
bulk is considered. Occasionally when chasing each other around the 
pond one of them will have the misfortune to slip in negotiating an 
awkwardly narrow corner by their house, and the resultant unintentional 
dive will awaken echoes throughout the gardens. But the victim of 
the involuntary plunge will rise at once, puffing and shaken, but in 
admirable good-humor. It is all in the game, and it would be unsports- 
manlike to show ill temper. Excepting for these happy intervals they 
are a splendid example of masterly inactivity as they lie stretched out 
on the asphalt paths dreaming away the lazy hours — denizens of Lotus 
land. 
A HENPECKED HUSBAND. 
Rosamond is a full-grown suffragette. There are no disputes in 
that home as to which is head and which is tail. She is so convinced 
of her superiority that there is nothing to argue about, and William, 
who always seems to have a merry twinkle in his benevolent eyes, is 
a life-like caricature of the jolly, fat man who allows his wife to think 
what she likes and do what she likes — it amuses her and doesn’t hurt 
him. Nothing is important enough to allow it to disturb domestic 
serenity — so why worry? The supreme test of his forbearance and 
placidity comes at meal times. Each gets the same rations, consisting 
of half a hundredweight of hay, mixed with one hundred pounds of 
chaff and twenty pounds of bran. This allowance is placed in each 
feeding box. I am sorry to have to say that Rosamond forgets all about 
her assumed superiority at meal-times. She is content to adopt the 
tactics of the bully. Her one “devouring” passion is bran. The 
moment she puts her nose into her trough she roots about until she has 
got up every bit of easily discovered bran, and then with a snort she 
makes a bee line for the spot where slow, stupid, kindly Billy is leisurely 
eating what has been put before him as it was given to him. With an 
unmannerly thrust she pushes her spouse to one side, and he, having 
learned the futility of disputing her decree that “What’s yours is mine, 
what’s mine is my own,” walks philosophically over to her trough and con- 
tinues his meal there. As he has not learned the trick of eating up 
the bran first there is still a fine lot left for greedy Rosamond, and she 
soon finishes up every available morsel. William does not eat nearly as 
