Mr. Mudison is Uncomfortable but Happy
Curious! If anybody had told me a year ago that to-day I should be living at Lexington Avenue and Seventy-ninth Street, I would have laughed at them. Now I am laughing at myself, for while I am terribly uncomfortable all the time—or ought to be so—I am ridiculously happy. Gladys says things will look up with us financially after a while, as she has a rich old aunt somewhere, and we may be able to move west a block or two. But I don't indulge much in dreams. I try to take things as they come, and find solace in the fact that the only time in my life that I was ever stirred by ambition I lost a quarter of my capital. Yet I can hardly call it ambition, but rather necessity, for, confronted with the problem of supporting my suddenly acquired family, I bought stocks heavily on a rising market, with the inevitable result; so now we have only $15,000 a year. Of course Joshua pays ten thousand annually for the children's board, but Gladys has nobly refused her allowance from him.
There must be lots of people who get along on less than we do; but if they are anybody, it requires scrimping. Surely, I had to give up enough. Gastly has my car, as he sold stocks on the bulge; Duff has my saddle-horses, and Jangle has been turned into a general man about the house—a combination butler, footman, and furnace-tender. Doing without Jangle is not so hard, as I have to economize on clothes, and they are learning to take care of themselves, but I do feel the need of more clubs than the Cholmondeley, alone. Of course no man could live without the Cholmondeley. When I walk by the Ticktock and the Ping-pong, all those favorite old haunts of mine, I think of Enoch Arden or Rip Van Winkle, whoever the fellow was that stayed away from home so long. When I see the men in the windows looking bored, how I long to join them!
Belonging to one club is like having a port to clear from, but no destination. There is little pleasure in strolling down the avenue when there is no place for you to drop in, so I have been keeping close to home, though my reading had given me the idea that it was the last place anyone would want to be. Yet it is quite endurable. I suppose this is because Mrs. Mudison understands me so well. There are discomforts. I have to take breakfast much earlier, but you don't really mind getting up at nine o'clock when you have not been out late the night before. There are long hours when there is nothing to do, hours when in the old days I could ride, but which now must be filled in with pictorial papers. I do miss that daily canter, but Gladys had to have a pair for her brougham, so I take my exercise by walking in the park with the children. Rather amusing they are too.
The other morning I was watching Devereux and Maltravers racing around on the grass, when along the bridle-path came Cecil Hash on his smart piebald pony. Pulling up in front of me he shouted, "Lord! Mudison, you are not going to throw yourself in the reservoir?"
Really, I was feeling very cheerful, but my meditative attitude misled him.
"I am just taking the children for a walk," said I, pointing to the small pair.
Cecil kind of stared at the boys. His expression nettled me.
"They are Mrs. Mudison's," said I, rather sharply. "Perhaps you remember that she was Mrs. Joshua Underbunk."