"We sat opposite to one another at a dinner party where the conversation neared a topic that would be, I knew, extremely painful and embarrassing to our hostess.

My John led the talk--all unaware of the peril--and when the next sentence would, I felt, be fatal, I pressed his foot under the table.

What do you think that blessed innocent did?
Winced visibly and sharply--stopped short in the middle of a word, and stared at me with pendulous jaw, and--while everybody looked at him for the next breath--said, resonantly--'_Jane! did you touch my foot ?_'" The incident is essentially John-esque.

I am as positive as if I had called for a comparison of experience, that every wife who reads this could furnish a parallel sketch from life.

The average John is impervious to glance or gesture.