Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1909-04-01
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 it must have been
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 a 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 it 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, it is quiet and
peace in your own home.
The chances are that she Is the
incest kind of person-reeking with
culture, and, doubtless, enthusiastic
about the opera-which you detest-
and the strain of appearing we'll 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
yonr wife's condemnation, and when
her friend departs at last she
declares, with tears in her eyes,
that she will never have her again"
Then there is the silent dressmaker
that your wife has at regular inter-
walls. 1t isn't exactly that she should
eat at 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:
III you think you can afford to have
all my gowns made outside, Why, very
we'll"
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 afterw5rd, stand
ing meellly on the front porch until
she says 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 a fine family" and
the nice 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 your old friend Jack Pratt is
in town, and ii she doesn't mind you
will have him out to dine. and she
gives YOU q stony stare and says that
size has put up with that sort of thing
last as long as she is going TO- why,
then then-you wonder at the ways
CT Providence, and if after all, the
ways OF women are always justified