Page:The Land of Wonders - O Conaire.pdf/12

6 events the Captain thought that the cakes his wife made for him were delicious.

The Captain's friends were greatly surprised that he had married such a woman, but no less surprised were the woman's friends that she had married such a man. The Captain's folk, or some of them, said that he had married her because of her immense height. Hardly another man, except the Captain, could kiss her without standing on a stool or chair. The woman's folk said, in reply, that it was because of his big hairy head that she married the Captain. She was a little short-sighted and how could she recognise at a distance anyone but the big hairy-headed man!

No one can tell with certainty now which of the two parties was right. We can only venture an opinion. The Captain's wife was a great woman for talk when she was so minded. She talked for seven hours to the Captain the day before they were married and he listened without saying a word. On that day she thought there was no man in the world but he and she made up her mind to marry him whether he liked it or not; and wasn't the Captain lucky that he didn't notice that he was half-asleep for a great part of the time? When the Captain awoke he said to himself that it was a good job for a person like him, who slept indifferently, to have such a wife. A wife who was able to sing