decent and compact figure, a man of middle height; who nevertheless wishing to stand two inches taller in the world than fairly beseems him, consents to be stretched by the rack in the hope of walking the higher for the pulling?—Now Mr. Jericho was this foolish man. He wanted to stand higher in the world than his simple means allowed him; and he had submitted himself to the rack of debt, to be handsomely drawn out. To get appearance upon debt is, no doubt, every bit as comfortable as to get height upon the rack. The figure may be expanded; but how the muscle of the heart, how all the joints are made to crack for it.

[Pg 3]

[Pg 3]

Mrs. Jericho—when last she spoke—dropt her question in the coldest, and most measured manner. Mr. Jericho, recalled from the land of flies, with curved lips, looked silently, sternly at the life-tenant of his bosom. And now the syllables fall hotly, heavily, as drops of molten lead.

“When can I have some money?” and Mrs. Jericho’s figure naturally rose with the question.

Mr. Jericho jumped from his seat the better to measure himself to his wife’s attitude. His first purpose was to swear; the oath was ready; but some good anatomical genius twitched a muscle, the jaw of Jericho closed, and the unuttered aspick died upon his tongue. He would not swear; he would not enter upon that coward’s privilege; he felt the soreness of great provocation; felt that the smallest and least offensive oath would do him sudden and mysterious good. Nevertheless, he swallowed the emotion, striking his breast to keep the passion down. He would be cold as cream.

Mrs. Jericho, however, having the right of arithmetic upon her side, repeated her question; asking it with a terrible calmness, at the same time, as though to make the query stinging, waving her right hand before her husband’s face, with a significant and snaky motion.—“When can I have some money?”

“Woman!” cried Jericho, vehemently; as though at once and for ever he had emptied his heart of the sex; and, rushing from the room, he felt himself in the flattering vivacity of the moment a single man. The transient feeling fell from him as he ran up stairs; and ere he had begun to shave, all his responsibilities returned with full weight upon him. “I’m sure, after all, I do my best to love the woman,” thought Jericho, as he lathered his chin, “and yet she will ask for money.”

Mrs. Jericho, baffled but not subdued, half-confessed to 

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