"Well, doctor, I—I—I—know what is the matter with that baby."

"You do! you know! Well, why didn't you—What is the matter with it?"

"The fact is, I mesmerized it last night."

"You did! Mesmerized it! And why don't you rouse it up again?"

"I don't know how; that's the mischief of it. I did it accidentally, you know. I was sort of fingering around the child's forehead, and all of a sudden it stopped crying and dropped off. Can't you find me a professional mesmerizer to come and undo the baby?"

"I don't believe I can. The only one I know of lives in San Francisco, and he couldn't get here in less than a week even if we should telegraph for him."

"By that time," shrieked Mr. Fogg, "the baby'll be dead and Maria will be insane! What, under Heaven, are we going to do about it?"

"Let's hunt up Brown; maybe he knows."

So they went around to Dr. Brown's office and revealed the secret to him. Brown seemed to think that he might perhaps do something to rob the situation of its horrors, and he accompanied Mr. Fogg and Dr. Gill to the house. When they entered, Mrs. Fogg was rapidly becoming hysterical. Dr. Brown placed the baby on the bed; he slapped its little hands and rubbed its forehead and dashed cold water in its face. In a few moments the baby opened its eyes, then it suddenly sat up and began to cry. Mr. Fogg used to hate that noise, but now it seemed to him sweeter than music. Mrs. Fogg was wild with joy. She took the baby in her arms and kissed and hugged it, and then she said,

"What do you think was the matter with him, doctor?"

"Why, your husband says he mesmerized the child," replied the doctor, incautiously letting the secret drop.

Then Mrs. Fogg looked at the culprit as if she wished to assassinate him; but she merely ejaculated, "Monster!" and flew from the room; and Mr. Fogg, as he went down with the physicians, put on an injured look and said,

"If that baby wants to holloa now, I'm going to let him holloa, if he holloas the top of his head off."

* * * * *

It was this offence, according to popular rumor, that brought things to a crisis in Mr. Fogg's family and induced Mrs. Fogg to seek to remove the heavy burden of woe imposed upon her by her husband. Only a few days later Mr. and Mrs. Fogg knocked at the door of Colonel Coffin's law office, and then filed in, Mrs. Fogg in advance. Mr. Fogg, the reader may care to know, was a subdued, weak-eyed and timid person. He had the air of a victim of perpetual tyranny—of a man who had been ruthlessly and remorselessly sat upon until his spirit was wholly gone. And Mrs. Fogg looked as if she might have been his despot. She opened the conversation by addressing the lawyer:

"Colonel, I have called to engage you as my counsel in a divorce suit against Mr. Fogg. I have resolved to separate from him—to sunder our ties and henceforth to live apart."

"Indeed!" replied the colonel; "I'm sorry to hear that. What's the matter? Has he been beating and ill-treating you?"

"Beating!" exclaimed Mrs. Fogg, disdainfully; "I should think not! I should like him to try it."

"Maria, let me—" interposed Mr. Fogg, mildly.

"Now, Wilberforce," she exclaimed, interrupting him, "you remain quiet; I will explain this matter to Colonel Coffin. You see, colonel, Mr. Fogg is eccentric beyond endurance. He goes on continually in a manner that will certainly drive me to distraction. I can stand it no longer. We must be cut asunder. For years, colonel, Wilberforce has been attempting to learn to play upon the flute. He has no more idea of music than a crow, but he will try to learn. He has been practicing upon the flute since 1862, and he has learned but a portion of but one tune—'Nelly Bly.' He can play but four notes, 'Nelly Bly shuts—' and there he stops. He has practiced these four notes for fourteen years. He plays them upon the porch in the evening; he blows them out from the garret; he stands out in the yard and puffs them; he has frequently risen in the night and seized his flute and played 'Nel-ly Bly shuts' for hours, until I had to scream to relieve my feelings."

"Now, Maria," said Mr. Fogg, "you know that I can play as far as 'shuts her eye'—six notes in all. I learned them in the early part of June."

"Very well, now; it's of no consequence. Don't interrupt me. This is bad enough. I submitted to it because I loved him. But on Tuesday, while I was watching him through the crack of the parlor door, I saw him wink twice at my chambermaid; I saw him distinctly."

"Maria," shrieked Fogg, "this is scandalous. You know very well that I am suffering from a nervous affection of the eye-lids."

"Wilberforce, hush! In addition to this wickedness, colonel, Mr. Fogg is becoming so absent-minded that he torments my life; he makes me utterly wretched. Four times now has he brought his umbrella to bed with him and scratched me by joggling it around with the sharp points of the ribs toward me. What on earth he means I cannot imagine. He said he thought somehow it was the baby, but that is so preposterous that I can hardly believe him."

"Why can't you? Don't you remember perfectly well that I emptied a bottle of milk into the umbrella twice? Would I have done that if I hadn't thought it was the baby?"

"There, now, Wilberforce! that's enough from you. Do let me have a chance to talk! And, colonel, the real baby he treats in the most malignant manner. A few days ago he mesmerized it secretly, and scared me so that I am ill from the effects of it yet. I thought the dear child would sleep for ever. And in addition to this, I came in on Thursday and found that he had laid the large family Bible on the darling's stomach. It was at the last gasp. I thought it would never recover."

"Maria, didn't I tell you I gave it to the child to play with to keep him quiet?"

"Mr. Fogg, will you please let me get a word in edgeways? Our older children, too, he is simply ruining. He teaches them the most pernicious and hurtful doctrines. He told Johnny the other day that Madagascar was an island in the Peruvian Ocean off the coast of Illinois, and that a walrus was a kind of a race horse used by the Caribbees. And our oldest girl told me that he instructed her that Polycarp fought the battle of Waterloo for the purpose of defeating the Saracens."

"Not the Saracens, Maria; Lucy misunderstood—"

[Illustration: A NOVEL MOUSETRAP]

"Wilberforce, I wish you would hush! His general treatment of me was scandalous. He was constantly taking my teeth for the purpose of knocking around the spigot in the bath-tub at night when the baby wanted a drink, and only last week he took both sets after I had gone to bed, propped them apart, baited them with cheese, and caught two horrid mice before morning. I was so hurt by his behavior that I drank some laudanum for the purpose of committing suicide, and then Mr. Fogg borrowed a pump in at Knott's drug store and pumped me out twice in such a rude manner that I have felt hollow ever since."

"I did it from kindness, Maria."

"Don't talk of kindness to me, Wilberforce, after your conduct. And, colonel, one night last week, after I had retired, Mr. Fogg sat down in the room below and determined to see if it were true that a candle could be shot through a board from a gun. He dropped a lighted candle in his gun, and of course it exploded. It came up through the floor and made a large spot of grease upon the ceiling of my room, nearly scaring me to death and filling my legs full of