“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.”
[Illustration]
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