The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-12-12
OLD JOHN ADAMS.

I and exhausting day in the court to- day in the case of Merkins vs. Merkins, a suit for divoi ce in whIch am the counsel for the p!ainiiff. Fl Fl Jane Merkins.
 The case itselt IS a peculiarly trying one, and the plaintiff adds to its horror by consulting me when 1 want to do something else. I took her case al an agreed price, and So Mrs. Merkins is try ing to get her moneys worth by consult ing me m way that aohor. She has consulted me in every mood and tense that know of; at my office, on the stree,, in church, at the festive board and at diff terent funerals to which we both happened to be called. Mrs MerkiDs has hung like a pail over several Massachuset s funerals which otherwise had every symptom of success.
 l am great admirer of woman as a ~omau, but as client in a suit for di- vorce she has her peculiarities. have seen Etiza in every phase of the case She has been calm and tearful, stormy and snorting, low. spirited and red-nosed, violent and menacing, resigned but sobby, trustiul aud confidential, high strung and naughty, crushed and weepy. l red hot scatding tear wherever she can obtain permission to do so She has wept in my wood box, in my new spit;oon, on my desk and on my birthday. told her that wished she would weep on something else. There were enoUga objects in nature upon which poor woman who wept con- stantly and had no other visible means of support could shed the wild torrents of her grlef without weeping on my ami versaTy. A man wants to keep his birth day as dry as possible. He hates to have It wept on by client who has .~ed hun down to half-price, and then insisted on coming in to sob with him ln the morn. ing before he has swept the office floor.
 One time she came and sobbed on my shoulder. Her tears are of the warm, damp kind, and feel disagreeabie as they roll down the neck of comparative stranger, who never can be aught but a friend. She rested her bonnet on my bosom while she wept, and then dls. covered that she had been in the habit of wearing this bonnet While cooking her buckwheat pancakes. presume she keeps her bonnet on all the time so that she may be ready to dash out and con- suit me at all times without delay. Still she ought not to do it, for when she leans her head on the bosom of her counsel in order to consult him he detects the odoT of tue early sausage and the feeung pam cakes.
 You may bust such bonnet and crush it if | you will,
 But the scent of the pancake will cling round | 1t stIll
 As soon as saw that her object was to lean up again st me and no; only con vulse herself with sobs, but that she in [. tended to 1T me also with her great woe, 1 told her that would have to req qaest her to avaunt. then, as she dId not act upon my suggestion, avaunted her my self. 1 avaunted her into chair with a sickening thud.
 She then burst forth in torrent of vi. tupera,ion. When the abnormal sobber is suddenly corked up, these sobs raukle in the system and bHrst forth in the sh ape of vituperalion. h the course of her re marks, she stated in a violent manner that she would denounce me throus bout the country and retain other counsel 1 told her wished she would, as my sympa. thies were with Mir. Merklns. told her that she must either pay me a larger f.e or should insist on her weeping Tn the alley before she came up.
 Sne then took her departure with a rising infection. On the tollowing day, however, found her at the office door, and she stood near and consulted me again, while l took up the ashes and started fire in the stove.
 Her case is quite peculiar. She wants a divorce from her husband on the ground of cruelty to animals, or some. thing of that kind, and when she first told me about it thought she had a case, but when we came to trial found that she had had every reason to believe that 1t she could be separated from MT. Mer. kins she could at once become the bride ot gentleman who ploughed the raging m ain.
 ust as we went to the jury to-day with | the case, she heard casually that the gen. tleman who had been ID the man plou h. | ing business had just ma,yied without her knowledge or consent
 She was wild. She came up to consult me in the courtroom and made an effort to faint against me and stab me in the pit ot the stomach with her pancake-satur .ted bonnet, but ] evaded her and she fell ID in the arms of an attendant.
 Luckily for her, we had so introduced our testimony that the verdict was against us, and she is still Mrs Merkins, though she does not look happy. Neither ooes Mir. Merklns. A littie cloud about the ze of door mat seems to have crossed their horizon.
 l would not again saturate my system with the sorrows of another. oi hold my self in readiness for those who wished to come and weep on, for twice the income l nov receive.
 Woman's tears are a good thing in their place. They are fifs-rate. But the woman who delays business with her de- slructive washouts aud her dev ast ating cloud-bursts is an enemy to our race With this remark, eject the cat, ex,ln. guish the blindlng glare ot the candle and retire.