MR. PIPKIN’S IDEAS OF FAMILY RETRENCHMENT.
Mrs. Pipkin, I am under the disagreeable necessity of informing you, that our family expenses are getting to be enormous. I see that carpet woman charged you a dollar for one day’s work. Why, that is positively a man’s wages;—such presumption is intolerable. Pity you did not make it yourself, Mrs. Pipkin; wives ought to lift their end of the yoke; that’s my creed.
Little Tom Pipkin.—Papa, may I have this bit of paper on the floor? it is your tailor’s bill—says, “$400 for your last year’s clothes.”
Mr. Pipkin.—Tom, go to bed, and learn never to interrupt your father when he is talking. Yes, as I was saying, Mrs. Pipkin, wives should hold up their end of the yoke; and it is high time there was a little retrenchment here; superfluities must be dispensed with.
Bridget.—Please, sir, there are three baskets of champagne just come for you, and four boxes of cigars.
Mr. Pipkin.—Will you please lock that door, Mrs. Pipkin, till I can get a chance to say what I have to say to you on this subject. I was thinking to-day, that you might dispense with your nursery maid, and take care of baby yourself. He don’t cry much, except nights; and since I’ve slept alone up stairs, I don’t hear the little tempest at all. It is really quite a relief—that child’s voice is a perfect ear-splitter.
I think I shall get you, too, to take charge of the marketing and providing, (on a stipulated allowance from me, of course,) it will give me so much more time to——attend to business, Mrs. Pipkin. I shall take my own dinners down town at the —— House. I hear Stevens is an excellent “caterer;” (though that’s nothing to me, of course, as my only object in going is to meet business acquaintances from different parts of the Union, to drive a bargain, &c., &c.)
Well—it will cost you and the children little or nothing for your dinners. There’s nothing so disgusting to a man of refinement, like myself, as to see a woman fond of eating; and as to children, any fool knows they ought not to be allowed to stuff their skins, like little anacondas. Yes, our family expenses are enormous. My partner sighed like a pair of bellows at that last baby you had, Mrs. Pipkin; oh, it’s quite ruinous—but I can’t stop to talk now, I’m going to try a splendid horse which is offered me at a bargain—(too frisky for you to ride, my dear, but just the thing for me.)