And then, when the
children were away, I found myself spending infinitely more time and
trouble in getting some of my bachelor friends to bed.
SOCRATES: As that merry cartoonist Briggs observes in some of his
frescoes, Oh Man!
AJAX: I wonder if your experience is the same as mine was? I found
that about six o'clock in the evening, the hour when I would
normally have been hastening home to wife and babes, was the most
poignant time. I was horribly homesick. If I did go back to my
forlorn apartment, the mere sight of little Priam's crib was enough
to reduce me to tears. I seriously thought of writing a poem about
it.
SOCRATES: What is needed is a Club of Abandoned Husbands, for the
consolation of those whose families are out of town.
AJAX: I have never found a club of much assistance at such a time.
It is always full of rather elderly men who talk a great deal and in
a manner both doleful and ill-informed.
SOCRATES: But this would be a club of quite a different sort. It
would be devised to offer a truly domestic atmosphere to those who
have sent their wives and juveniles to the country for the benefit
of the fresh air, and have to stay in the city themselves to earn
what is vulgarly known as kale.
AJAX: How would you work out the plan?
SOCRATES: It would not be difficult. In the first place, there would
be a large nursery, with a number of rented children of various
ages.
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