The Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1???-1928, 1909-05-31
GUESTS AT DINNER
MERE MAN THINKS HE HAS a
kick" COMING.
Speaks Sadly of the Friends OF HIS
Wife Whom He Has to Endure,
While His Chums Are
Boycotted.

No one can remember when it was
that the first woman complained of the
friend that her husband brought home
TO dinner. But ii must have been a
very long time ago.
And all these years men have gone
on, suffering from this imputation. 1t
has indeed been a standing joke that
no man has right to bring home a
friend to dinner that his wife doesn't
know about beforehand,
But how about the other side OF the
affair? How about the friends that
ones wife brings home TO dinner? No
word of protest has yet been raised
by husbands But is ii not time that
something was done about it?
There Is the old schoolmate your
wife hasn't seen for years. She comes
on to spend couple of weeks-or
even a month--in the height of the
| business season, when, If there is any
thing else You desire, II is quiet and
| peace in your own home.
The chances are that she Is the
incest kind of a person-reeking with
culture, and doubtless, enthusiastic
about the opera-which you detest-
and the strain of appearing well be-
| fore her becomes more and more in
tense as the days roll by, until at last
| you throw off the mask and
appear as your natural self This,
Of course. calls down upon you
your wife's condemnation, and when
her friend departs at last she
| declares, with tears in her eyes,
that she with never have her again
| Then there is the silent dressmaker
| that your wife has at regular inter
| walls, II isn't exactly that she should
| eat al the same table with you. On
| the other hand, there Is no reason why
| she shouldn't She is highly refined
and has been used to even much bet
ter things than you are able TO pro
vide. Then why not? And she does
OF course you cannot mind about
this 1t would stamp you as a narrow
| minded brute TO assume for an instant
that she isn't as good or better than
YOU are. AS a matter Of fact. this
thought has never occurred to you. 1t
isn't because you feel any superiority
that you wish your privacy. You ex-
plain all this to your wife, but she
losses her head in the air and SAYS;
IF you think you can afford to have
all my gowns made outside, why, very
well"
Among others whom your wife
brings home to dinner without asking
your consent is the president of the
Woman's club, the minister's wife, the
intimate friend in the next square
whose husband is away on important
business, and with whom you are
Obliged to walk home afterward, stand
ing mcekly on the front porch until
she Gays that it's all right. There is
the trained nurse your wife had dur
ing her last illness, the teacher of mu
sic. who comes OF fine family" and
the nee old lady who used to live
next door to your wife's mother.
You smirk before them all. But
when some morning You timidly as
sert that ycur old friend Jack Pratt I;
in town. and IL she doesn't mind you
VIII lave him out TO dine. and she
gives YOU a stony stare and says thai
she has nut up with that sort of thinl
iast rs long as she is going to, why
thcn- ther-you wonder at the way:
Il Providence, and If after all, th'
, ways of women are always justified