The Broker Who Tried to Divorce His Wife Over a Finger Bowl

A certain stockbroker is restive to the bonds of wedlock. His domestic tranquility is disturbed by occasional sallies and jousts with the companion he took to himself 'for better or for worse.' Lately his investments have reduced his bank account; consequently, he decided to lighten the reins in his household and to economize. His wife's pin money has been cut down to $10, and the result is that his ears are incessantly tingling with the echoes of his wife's lunges.

On coming from his residence, a few days ago, apparently much agitated, most likely on account of another unpleasant scene at home, he stepped into the office of an attorney. 'What's up now?' asked the attorney. 'Have Halse and Norcross come down, and another $10,000 bank failure?'

'No, no; Halse and Norcross is all right.'

'Then Cholera has given you the slip, and you want to be rid of him? Or has the bottom of the Nicaragua treaty been knocked out, and the chance of his boodle from that 'raging canal' goes to the bourne whence no traveler returns?'

'The Nicaragua Canal be damned, consigned to perdition... but to business. I want a divorce from my wife,' said the broker, 'but I don't know how to begin.'

'Any ground for scandal?' asked the attorney.

'No, oh, no.'

'Did she ever hit you?'

'No; her temper is quite even.'

'Did she ever blow out the gas?'

'No; she lets it burn. Maybe that would be grounds, eh?'

'No,' said the attorney. 'In that case she would call to her aid the gas company, and we would have a struggle with a monopoly. That wouldn't do.'

'She drank out of the finger bowl at the hotel when we were on our bridal tour,' said the husband, hesitatingly.

'If you get the dates and witnesses,' said the lawyer, quickly, 'I think it will be sufficient—under our law.'