Once upon a time there was a man who had the power (whenever he found that he had made a mistake) to
turn back the clock, and do the event over again in the light of experience. Now it so befell that this man once
took shelter from the rain in a barn, with a very beautiful and seductive young lady.
And, when he told his wife about it afterwards, and she asked him rather suspiciously how he had behaved
with the young lady, he replied in a surprised and hurt tone: “Why, perfectly properly, of course! It never
occurred to me to do anything else.” Whereupon his wife sniffed indignantly, and declared, “It was no credit to you to resist a temptation
which never tempted you.”
Then the man saw that he had made a tactical mistake; so he turned the clock back a few minutes and
tried the conversation over again.
This time, when his wife expressed suspicion, he admitted: “It was all that I could do to keep my fingers
off of her; but my deep and loyal love for you gave me strength to resist the temptation.” Whereupon, instead of feeling complimented at this evidence of devotion, the wife became exceedingly angry. “No credit to you!” she snapped. “You oughtn’t even to have wanted to touch her. It is just as immoral to want a woman, as to get her.” So the man spent a long
time thinking. There must be some way to please a woman!
Finally the solution dawned on him, and he turned back the clock for a third try. Once more his wife asked
him how he had behaved with the beautiful young lady.
This time, with hurt dignity, he replied, “What! That frump! Please give me credit for some taste.”
Whereupon his wife, who was nowhere near as attractive as the beautiful young lady, flung her arms
around his neck, and murmured, “You darling!” All of which proves that you can please a woman, if you use a little tact. So the man’s miraculous power of turning back the clock did him no good. Except, of course, to teach him that there’s no pleasing a woman, no matter what you do! Which he ought to have known anyway.
Realizing which, he turned the clock back again, a little further this time, to the episode of the beautiful and seductive young lady, in the barn, in the rain.
