CHAPTER XIV
There are those who maintain that a man can do everything better than a woman can do it. This is certainly true of nagging. When a man nags, he shows his thoroughness, his continuity, and that love of sport which is the special pride and attribute of his sex. When a man nags, he puts his whole heart into the effort; a woman only nags, as a rule, because the heart has been taken out of her. The nagging woman is an over-tasked creature with jarred nerves, whose plaint is an expression of pain, a cry for help; in any interval of ease which lasts long enough to relax the tension, she feels remorse, and becomes amiably anxious to atone. With the male nag it is different. He is usually sleek and smiling, a joyous creature, fond of good living, whose self-satisfaction bubbles over in artistic attempts to make everybody else uncomfortable. This was the kind of creature Uncle James Patten was. He loved to shock and jar and startle people, especially if they were powerless to retaliate. Of two ways of saying a thing he invariably chose the more disagreeable; and when he had bad news to break, it added to his interest in it if the victim felt it deeply and showed signs of suffering.
One morning at breakfast it might have been suspected that there was something unpleasant toward. Uncle James had read prayers with such happy unction, and showed such pleased importance as he took his seat.
"Aunt Victoria," he lisped, "I have just observed in yesterday's paper that money matters are in a bad way. There has been a crisis in the city, and your investments have sunk so low that your income will be practically nil."
"What!" said Aunt Victoria incredulously, "the shares you advised me to buy?"
"Those are the ones, yes," he answered.
"But, then—I fear you have lost money too," she exclaimed.
"Oh no, thank you," he assured her, in a tone which implied reproach, "I never speculate."
"James Patten," said Aunt Victoria quietly, "am I to understand that you advised me to buy stock in which you yourself did not venture to speculate?"
"Well—er—you see," he answered with composure, "as speculation was against my principles, I could not take advantage of the opportunity myself, but that seemed to me no reason why you should not try to double your income. It may have been an error of judgment on my part; I am far from infallible—far from infallible. But I think I may claim to be disinterested. I did not hope to benefit myself——"