AFTER MARRIAGE
“And so you want another hat?” he thundered to his frau. “Just tell me what is wrong with that—the one you’re wearing now! No wonder that I have the blues, the way the money goes; last week you blew yourself for shoes, next week you’ll want new clothes!
“I wish you were like other wives and would like them behave; it is the object of their lives to help their husbands save. All day I’m in the business fight and strain my heart and soul, and when I journey home at night, you touch me for my roll. You want a twenty-dollar hat, to hold your topknot down, or else a new Angora cat, a lapdog, or a gown. You lie awake at night and think of things you’d like to buy, and when I draw a little chink, you surely make it fly.
“With such a wife as you, I say, a husband has no chance; you pull his starboard limb by day, by night you rob his pants.
“My sainted mother, when she dwelt in this sad vale of tears, had one old lid of cloth or felt, she wore for thirty years. She helped my father all the time, she pickled every bone, and if she had to blow a dime, it made her weep and moan.
“The hat you wear is good as new; ’twill do another year. So don’t stand round, the rag to chew—I’m busy now, my dear.”
THE TWO SALESMEN
Two salesmen went to work for Jones, who deals in basswood trunks; each drew per week eleven bones, eleven big round plunks. “It isn’t much,” said Jones, “but then, do well, and you’ll get more; I’d like to have some high-priced men around this blamed old store. You’ll find I’m always glad to pay as much as you are worth, so let your curves from day to day astonish all the earth.”