And, to tell you the truth, my marriage so altered me that, what with a snuff-coloured coat and a brown scratch wig, with a pen in my right ear, I looked the very picture of staid respectability.

My face grew an inch longer every day.

Nothing is so respectable as a long face; and a subdued expression of countenance is the surest sign of commercial prosperity.

Well, we went on splendidly enough for about a year.
Meanwhile I was wonderfully improved in philosophy.

You have no idea how a scolding wife sublimes and rarefies one's intellect.