"For what?"
"For a—a——"
But Mrs. J. was stuck. Jipson saw that; he divined what a point Mrs. J. was about to, but could not conscientiously make, so he relieved her with—
"My dear Betsey, it's a popular fallacy, an exploded idea, a contemptible humbug, to live merely for your neighbors, the rabble world at large. Thousands do it, my dear, and I've no objection to their doing it; it's their own business, and none of mine. I have moved up town because I thought it would be more pleasant; I bought a modest kind of family carriage because I could afford it, and believed it would add to our recreations and health; the carriage and horses required care; I engaged a man to attend to them, fix up the garden, and be useful generally, and added a girl or two to your domestic departments, in order to lighten your own cares, &c. Now, all this, my dear woman, you ought to know, rests a very important responsibility upon my shoulders, health, life, and—two thousand dollars a year, and if you imagine it compatible with common sense, or consonant with my judgment, to make an ass or fool of myself, by going into the extravagances and tom-fooleries of Tannersoil, our neighbor over the way, who happens for the time to be 'under government,' with a salary of nothing to speak of, but with stealings equal to those of a successful freebooter, you—you—you have placed a—a bad estimate upon my common sense, Madam."
With this flaring burst of eloquence, Jipson seized his hat, gloves and cane, and soon might be seen an elderly, natty, well-shaved, slightly-flushed gentleman taking his seat in a down town bound bus, en route for the sugar bakery of the firm of Cutt, Comeagain, & Co. It was evident, however, from the frequency with which Jipson plied his knife and rubber to his "figgers" of the day's accounts, and the tremulousness with which he drove the porcupine quill, that Jipson was thinking of something else!
"Mr. Jipson, I wish you'd square up that account of Look, Sharp, & Co., to-day," said Mr. Cutt, entering the counting room.
"All folly!" said Jipson, scratching out a mistake from his day-book, and not heeding the remark, though he saw the person of his employer.
"Eh?" was the ejaculation of Cutt.
"All folly!"
"I don't understand you, sir!" said Cutt, in utter astonishment.