More Spinned Against...

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One of the things about her husband that displeased Lydia Charters more as the years went by was the shape of him; another was his hobby. There were other displeasures, of course, but it was these in particular that aroused her sense of failure.

True, he had been much the same shape when she had married him, but she had looked for improvement. She had envisioned the development, under her domestic influence, of a more handsome, suaver, better filled type. Yet after nearly twelve years of her care and feeding there was scarcely any demonstrable improvement. The torso, the main man, looked a little more solid, and the scales endorsed that it was so, but unfortunately this simply seemed to emphasize the knobby, gangling, loosely-hinged effect of the rest.

Once, in a mood of more than usual dissatisfaction, Lydia had taken a pair of his trousers and measured them carefully. Inert and empty, they seemed all right — long in the leg, naturally, but not abnormally so, and the usual width that people wore — but put to use, they immediately achieved the effect of being too narrow and full of knobs, just as his sleeves did. After the failure of several ideas to soften this appearance, she had realized that she would have to put up with it. Reluctantly, she had told herself: "Well, I suppose it can't be helped. It must be just one of those things — like horsy women getting to look more like horses, I mean," and thereby managed a dig at the hobby, as well.

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