"My heavens, what an enormous box! What is it, Wilkins? Was there a message? Did he send me a message?" "Good gracious me!" she cried, all of a flutter. She turned and saw Wilkins, the Colonel's groom, a small wizened dwarf with grey skin, and he was pushing a large flattish cardboard box into her arms. "The Colonel asked me to give you this," a voice beside her said. The man had a way of making her feel that she was altogether a rather remarkable woman, a person of subtle and exotic talents, fascinating beyond measure and what a very different thing that was from the dentist husband at home who never succeeded in making her feel that she was anything but a son of eternal patient, someone who dwelt in the waiting-room, silent among the magazines, seldom if ever nowadays to be called in to suffer the finicky precise ministrations of those clean pink hands. But then the Colonel's company always did that to her these days. This particular visit which had just ended had been more than usually agreeable, and she was in a cheerful mood. It was just before Christmas, and Nits Bixby was standing on the station in Baltimore waiting for the train to take her back to New York. "My dear, I'd almost forgotten how ravishing you looked. "Tally-ho!" the Colonel would cry each time he met her at the station in the big car. On the contrary, the long wait between meetings only made the heart grow fonder, and each separate occasion became an exciting reunion. They met so seldom-twelve times a year is not much when you come to think of it-that there was little or no chance of their growing bored with one another. Year after year, this pleasant alliance between Mrs Bixby and the Colonel continued without a hitch. No wife or family encumbered him, only a few discreet and loyal servants, and in Mrs Bixby's absence he consoled himself by riding his horses and hunting the fox. He lived in a charming house on the outskirts of town. The dirty dog, in the shape of a gentleman known as the Colonel, was lurking slyly in the background, and our heroine spent the greater part of her Baltimore time in this scoundrel's company. She's mine."Īs it turned out, however, the aunt was little more than a convenient alibi for Mrs Bixby. "Of course not, darling," Mrs Bixby had answered. "Just so long as you don't ever expect me to accompany you," Mr Bixby had said in the beginning. He knew that Aunt Maude lived in Baltimore, and that his wife was very fond of the old lady, and certainly it would be unreasonable to deny either of them the pleasure of a monthly meeting. Mr Bixby accepted this arrangement good-naturedly. She would spend the night with the aunt and return to New York on the following day in time to cook supper for her husband. Once a month, always on Friday afternoons, Mrs Bixby would board the train at Pennsylvania Station and travel to Baltimore to visit her old aunt. Mrs Bixby was a big vigorous woman with a wet mouth. Mr Bixby was a dentist who made an average income. The story is called "Mrs Bixby and the Colonel's Coat', and it goes something like this: Mr and Mrs Bixby lived in a smallish apartment somewhere in New York City. It is extremely popular with twice-or thricebitten males in search of solace, and if you are one of them, and if you haven't heard it before, you may enjoy the way it comes out. There is one, however, that seems to be superior to the rest, particularly as it has the merit of being true. There are many of these stories going around, these wonderful wishful thinking dreamworld inventions of the unhappy male, but most of them are too fatuous to be worth repeating, and far too fruity to be put down on paper. The audience of men around the bar smiles quietly to itself and takes a little comfort from the fantasy. The woman is flabbergasted, stupefied, humiliated, defeated. But wait! Suddenly, by a brilliant manoeuvre, the husband completely turns the tables on his monstrous spouse. Will the poor man ever find out? Must he be a cuckold for the rest of his life? Yes, he must. The husband is too good a man even to suspect her. The wife is cunning, deceitful, and lecherous, and she is invariably up to some sort of jiggery-pokery with the dirty dog. The husband is a decent clean-living man, working hard at his job. There are always three main characters-the husband, the wife, and the dirty dog. The basic theme of these stories never varies.
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