NEVER quarrel at breakfast is the first maxim for commuters and their wives. Partings in anger mean day-long misery for both, and generally involve telephone calls later in the day, and a box of chocolate-coated maraschino cherries carried home on the 5.18. Marriage (say the philosophers) is a subdivision of the penal code, dedicated to the proposition that men and women are created equal. But the studious observer of matrimonial feints and skirmishes sees very little to verify that daring surmise. Harry Bennett sipped his breakfast coffee grimly. Its savour had departed: for ninety seconds earlier Mrs. Bennett had fled upstairs in a flush of anger and tears. In five minutes he would have to run for the train; and what man can soothe an outraged wife in five minutes? He ate his toast without relish, gazing sourly on the blue-and-white imitation Copenhagen china, the pretty little porcelain marmalade pot, and the big silver coffee-urn.
The desperate inequality of married life pierced his heart. Why should he have to accept in silence tart remarks uttered by his wife, while the least savagery of his own was cause for tears?
He rushed upstairs to say a few consoling words. The bedroom door was locked. Compassion fled, and he growled furiously through the panels. Then he ran hotly for the train.
It seems unreasonable: but the lives of human beings are not guided by reason. Harry had come to the conclusion that the silver coffee-urn was at the bottom of all their squabbles.
Before Elaine Addison surrendered herself into his capable hands, there had been a competitor for the honour of surrounding her with sectional bookcases, linen closets, potted hydrangeas, and the other authentic trappings of a home.
Aubrey Andrews was the rival warrior. He was the kind of man who always has a lot of crisp greenbacks in a neat leather bill-fold. Harry's hard-earned frogskins were always crumpled in a trousers pocket This may seem trivial, but it distinguishes two totally different classes of men. Aubrey was tall, dark, well groomed; he played billiards and belonged to expensive clubs. It was supposed that his wife would be beyond the reach of financial worries. He kept a horse and easy office hours.
Harry—well, Harry was no aristocrat. He worked hard for what he got, and didn't get much. He was neither tall, nor dark, nor well groomed. But he was a fine, lovable, high-minded chap, and to everyone's surprise, including his own, he got Elaine.
Tennyson had a good deal to do with it, I think. Harry still read Tennyson, although that excellent poet is no longer fashionable, and kept on repeating what Tennyson said about Elaine. And finally Elaine could not help saying, “My Lancelot!” and melting into his arms.
Aubrey gave them a magnificent silver coffee-urn for a wedding present, and presently enlisted for service, first on the Mexican border and then in France, where he became a heroic and legendary figure, surrounded in Elaine's mind by the prismatic glamour of girlhood days.
That coffee-urn was a stunner! It was far the handsomest thing in the little suburban house, except, of course, Elaine herself. Beneath its shining caldron sat an alcohol lamp that rendered a blue flame and kept the coffee hot. Elaine's initials—her maiden initials—were engraved upon it, and those of the donor: E. A. A. A. The hand of the insidious silversmith had twined the A's together very gracefully.
Every time he looked at it, Harry felt subconsciously irritated, although he hardly realized why.
It stood on the little mission sideboard, outshining everything else in the pretty dining room. It was Elaine's particular pride, and was used only on special occasions. Often it was brought out for the little celebrations that young married couples have every now and then. And, curiously enough, these celebrations very often ended in tears. The polished dazzle of those silver curves was only too apt to suggest to Elaine's radiant little beauty-loving heart other handsome wares she would like to have, or unlucky comparison of the relative beauty of the wedding presents sent by her friends and his; or Harry would make some blunt remark about his not being able to give her all that some other husband might have.
Alas! Something of the sardonic spirit of the black-browed Aubrey seemed to radiate from his urn. Can a coffee-um hypnotize? Grotesque as it appears, little by little they realized that the innocent piece of silver was marring many an otherwise happy hour.
 
 
 
 
All the way to town in the smoking car, Harry's mind rotated savagely about their absurd tiff.
Let's see, how was it? He had said: “I'm sorry, dearest; I shall have to be rather late tonight. The head of my department is away, and I've got an extra lot of work to do.” She said: “Oh, dear—oh, dear! Then we sha'n't be able to go to the theatre, shall we?” He said: “We can go next week, Brownie.” She said: “Something horrid always happens when we have this coffee-urn on the table.”
(N. B. Right here, when the danger topic was introduced, he should have put on an extra soft pedal. But did he? Not a bit. As soon as the urn was mentioned his eyes began to flash.)
“Well,” he said, “don't let's have it on so often!” She said: “Any one might think you were jealous of it. It's the only handsome piece of silver I've got.”
Here he did make one honest effort to steer away from danger:
“I'm awfully sorry about to-night, honey, but the work's just got to be done.” She said: “Why didn't you let me know sooner you were going to work late? I could have arranged to go and see Mother.” He said: “Oh, well, everything I do is always wrong, anyway! I suppose if I could buy you a roomful of silver like that old tureen, you wouldn't mind.”
And after that it was not far to the deluge. All conducted according to the recognized technique of quarrelling, passing through the seven stages of repartee outlined by Touchstone, which should never be forgotten by those happily married:
 
1 The retort courteous
2 The quip modest
3 The reply churlish
4 The reproof valiant
5 The counter-check quarrelsome
6 The lie wit............