In France always, and in England when he will let her, a wife keeps an eye on her husband's interests. In America, she often lays hands on his capital.
It must be said that vulgarity is not the monopoly of the middle-class woman in America. I extract the following from a Boston paper:
"The extreme of vulgarity has lately been attained in a gorgeous Southern hotel, where the wife of a much-millionaired inventor holds state with a courier, another man-servant who dances attendance on a superannuated pug (whose teeth are said to be gold-fitted—the pug's teeth, remember, not the man's), and several maids. The courier manages the private palace-car of the family, which stands ready on the rails for use at any time and in any direction, and attends to the securing of rooms and steamer berths, as well as private dining privileges, when the family moves; and it always moves en prince."
All this is well enough if one can afford it; but the innate vulgarity of the thing is shown in fantastic and absurd costuming of the children, including satin breeches for the boys, and the gorgeous getting-up of the maids, two of these menials being told off to attend constantly on each child.
CHAPTER XVI.
High Class Humour.—Mr. Chauncey Depew and General Horace Porter.—Corneille had no Humour.—A Woman "sans père et sans proche."—Mark Twain.
umour is an unassuming form of wit, by turns gay, naive, grim, and pathetic, that you will never come across in a vain, affected man.