The Personal Conduct of Henry

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When Mrs. Henry Lee decides to spend a few days with her mother in a neighboring town, she gives her husband a brief, business college sort of a training in the art of housekeeping and makes her departure. Henry, to his surprise, finds that a woman's work is not such a cinch as he had imagined, and after a few vain efforts to follow accurately his wife's instructions regarding dish-washing, sweeping, etc., he gives the thing up as a bad job. The night before Mrs. Jones returns Henry invites a number of his men friends up to have a good time. When they leave, Henry, too weary to clean up the mess of cigar stubs, champagne bottles, etc., goes to bed, resolved to arise early and get things cleaned up before Mrs. Lee's return. A short time after he has fallen asleep he hears a noise at the front door, the sound of iron filing, then the front door creaking on its hinges. "Burglars," says Henry. Taking his revolver Henry creeps stealthily down the stairs to the hallway and covers the intruders with his revolver, just as they enter. He is about to call the police when a happy thought comes to him. Why not make the burglars clean up the house? Providing the astonished duo with brooms and cloths, Henry drives them through room after room, leaving cleanliness and order in their wake. When he is through with them, he thanks them, shoves a box of cigars and a few bottles of wine at them and turns them out. The burglars, however, are unappreciative of Henry's sense of humor and plan revenge. The next morning when Henry goes to the station to meet his wife they steal certain feminine apparel from a neighboring clothesline, enter the house again and litter the table with the mess of the night before. Henry and wife returns. Henry is jubilant in the belief that Mrs. Lee's estimate of his character will be raised fully 100 per cent. But no! The littered table, women's stockings and lingerie, conspicuously arrayed about the room, dispel his dreams. Vainly he tries to calm his enraged spouse to explain things. But the evidence of his guilt is only too convincing, and with the air of a martyr, Henry is dragged to the kitchen, where those implements of torture, the rolling pin and flat iron, await him.