“Any man who believes that, had better step into my shoes,” said little Mr. Weasel. “I suppose I’m what you call ‘the head of the family,’ but I shouldn’t know it if somebody didn’t tell me of it. Heigho! who’d have thought it five and twenty years ago? Didn’t I stifle a tremendous strong penchant for Diana Dix, (never smoked, I remember, for four hours after it,) because I had my private suspicions she’d hold the reins in spite of my teeth, and so I offered myself to little Susey Snow, (mistake in her name, by the way.) You might have spanned her round the waist, or lifted her with one hand. She never looked anybody in the face when they spoke to her, and her voice was as soft as——my brains! I declare, it’s unaccountable how deceitful female nature is! Never was so taken in in my life; she’s a regular Vesuvius crater! Her will? (don’t mention it!) Try to pry up the Alps with a cambric needle! If she’d only fly into a passion, I think I could venture to pluck up a little spirit; but that cool, determined, never-say-die look would turn Cayenne pepper to oil. It wilts me right down, like a cabbage leaf. I’d as lief face a loaded cannon! I wish I could go out evenings; but she won’t let me. Tom Jones asked me yesterday why I wasn’t at Faneuil Hall the night before. I told him I had the bronchitis. He saw through it! Sent me a pair of reins the next day,—‘said to be a certain cure!’ Ah! it’s very well for him to laugh, but it’s no joke to me. I suppose it’s time to feed that baby; Mrs. Weasel will be home pretty soon, from the ‘Woman’s Rights Convention.’ No, I won’t, either; I’ll give it some paregoric, and run up garret and smoke one cigar. I feel as though I couldn’t look a humming-bird in the eye! Nice cigar!—very nice! What a fool I am to be ordered round by a little blue-eyed woman, three feet high! I’m a very good looking fellow, and I won’t stand it! Isn’t that little Weasel as much her baby as it is mine? Certainly.”

“Mr. Weasel!”

“Hem,—my—dear—(oh! that eye of hers!)—you see, my dear, (there, I won’t do it again, Mrs. Weasel.) How’s ‘the Convention,’ dear? Carried the day, I hope?—made one of your smart speeches, hey? ’Tisn’t every man owns such a chain-lightning wife;—look out for your rights, dear; (deuce knows I dare not!”)