“Dear me, dear me, you look very ill, mine friend. Vot is the matter with you?”
“Ach,” groaned Isaacs, “I have had a terrible time, a shocking bad time.”
“Vot vas it all about?”
“I vill tell you,” replied Isaacs. “The veek before last two doctors came to mine house and took avay mine appendix.”
“Bah!” muttered his friend contemptuously. “I vonder at you. That vos all you own fault: you should have put it in the vife’s name. Then they could not touch it.”
The story might be told in a Scot’s accent, or even a Welsh one for that matter, and it would represent with equal truth the prevalent outlook of mankind on the commercial advantages of matrimony. I by no means desire to suggest that “the wife’s name” is made a baser use of by the eastern communities of Strangeways and Whitechapel than among the fair-haired Saxons of Surbiton and Chorlton-cum-Hardy.
There are many people who see no wrong in doing what is within the law, and there has always been a human tendency to score off one’s brother man by a smart trick since the days of Jacob and Esau. The fool will always be outwitted by the discreet ones of the world, who justify their ways by reminding us that we are only bound to obey the letter of the law, and that there is no duty cast upon us to interpret and respect its spirit.
And simple charitable folk will say that after all things may really be quite honest and straightforward, and it is only the stingy creditor who sees fraud and the ungenerous judicial mind that finds in the constant repetitions of a series of happenings an intention in the parties to whom the events occur to wrong their neighbours.
For why should not John Smith put over the door of his shop “J. Smith,” and how can the pleasant, careless fellow pay his debts in these bad times, and why do those wholesale curmudgeons press for their money and weary of John’s winning smile and dangling tales of future payment? If creditors won’t wait it is really very foolish in these days to sue for the money and put the bailiffs in. For friend John is away at the races and when they come and seize the stock and effects of “J. Smith” there is Mrs. Smith, dear, good lady, to whom of course everyone knows, or ought to know, the business belongs.
Is not she a married woman? Cannot she trade in her own name? Is not her name over the door—well, not her name exactly, but her initial—her full name is Jane Smith—and as for her husband, he has never been anything but a servant of hers, and now she is going to run the business herself!