The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-10-23
A LITTLE" JEALOUS.
A Very "Common-Sense" Gentle
man Surprises Himself.

Ii pride myself upon any mental endow.
ment whatever, it is upon that humble one
of common sense. live what is called by
the intellectual people a conventional life.
L have my pew in the neighboring church,
and sit in 1t twice every Sunday. know
one Captain in the army-just such per-
son as he should be-polisned, and vet
ferocious, gentle to ladies, but rather in
solent to civilian males, boastful of his
clubs, and giving all his leisure time, which
is considerable to the cultivation of his
mustache; but otherwise l am ignorant
of the fashionable world and all its CAV
doings. have made no endeavort to break
through the gilded pale that separates it
from the steady going middle class to
which I belong. l do not understand the
feeling which prompts my superiors to be
ashamed OF being seen in an omnibus,
once every day return from the city in
yellow one; and if it is wet, use the same
conveyance in the morning to reach my
office. pay my tradesmen weekly. NV
best sherry is forty eight shillings dozen;
and when the Captain talks of vinta ge
wines, as he will do by the hour at my
table, often wonder what he thinks he is
drinking. However, with true good breed
ing, he imbibes it in great quantities, as
though it were the best. | do not keep
man-servant. Our cook can not compass
an Onaetette son6iee. My wife trims her own
bonnets. We have eight children, who all
know the church catechism by heart except
the baby, and the last but one. In short,
more respectable and questionable
family than our own does not exist in all
Bayswater.
Under these circumstances, it may be
easily imagined that we are free from the
vices of the great as we are without their
privileges; and this was | honestly be-
lieve, the case, until within a very recent
period When used to read in the papers
that the Lady Lutetia Day Coltay (of Nor
man ancestry and bluest BLOODY had left
her husbands roof, and fled with Major
Flutterby of the Life Guards, used to give
a prolonged whistle, and remark Here
they are again" in general reference to
the hdut ton. | knew that our hereditary
aristocracy were given to these escapades,
which in my own rank of life would GER
tainly be crimes, and perused such details
as the press could furnish with an avidity
unalloyed, | am afraid with much repro
baton. L seemed to be reading of class
of persons whose way of life was too far
from my own to affect me- except as a
spectator; just as, when | went to the play
L found myself in an atmosphere of in
trlgue and misunderstanding and jealousy
altogether unreal, and with which | had
not the ghost of an experience in common
Jealousy Why, | had been married
sixteen years without entertaining that
passion, so that it was not very likely
however well acted, that that passion
should entertain me. misunderstanding
The thing was impossible; for whenever
there promised to be "row in tho
pantry"-and every married man will
understand me when l make use of
that metaphorical expression-l brought it
to head and had it out, and off we started
again Speaking for self and Mrs. R. on the
smooth current of our lives, with the little
fracas buried forever in its depths. AS for
the mother of eight children falling in love
with another man-it is all very we'll in a
stage-play, and, as l have said, befitting
enough among persons of quality; but upon
the Noting Hill side of Bayswater any
such mischance would, | felt, be out Of
place and ridiculous-a social presumption
as well as a grave domestic crime.
Imagine, therefore, my astonshment
when my opposite neighbor, Peabody,
who also calls himself my friend, did me
the honor to call upon me a few
weeks ago. to speak in confidence of
the alarming conduct of my wife.
Having demanded and obtained a
private interview, this scaudalous old per-
son, who was once an indigo-merchant. and
yet retains the trace of his calling upon his
nose, set before me in detail number of
curious circumstances connected with the
''goings on" as he was pleased to call
them, of my wife, which he was not, in
deed, prepared to say might not possibly
be only condolences, after all y but which
be felt it his duty as a fellow-creature and
one who had been husband in his time
here his lips made n dumb motion Of graft
tude-to let me know. Even as neigh
Dor, and an inhabitant of a common
crescent hitherto remarkable for its re-