FullReads

“Well, you must do it.”

“Do it?”

“Do it, sir,” reiterated the lady of Jipson, a man well enough to do in the world, chief clerk of a “sugar baker,” and receiving his twenty hundred dollars a year, with no perquisites, however, and–plenty of New Hampshire contingencies, (to quote our beloved man of the million, Theodore Parker,) poor relations.

“But, my dear Betsey, do you know, will you consider for once, that to do a thing of the kind–to splurge out like Tannersoil, one must expect–at least I do–to sink a full quarter of my salary, for the current year; yes, a full quarter?”

“Oh! very well, if you are going to live up here” (Jipson had just moved up above “Bleecker street,”)–“and bought your carriage, and engaged—-“

“Two extra servant girls,” chimed in Jipson.

“And a groom, sir,” continued Mrs. J.

“And gone into at least six hundred to eight hundred dollars a year extra expenses, to–a—-“

“To gratify yourself, and–a—-“

“Your–a–a–your vanity, Madam, you should have said, my dear.”

“Don’t talk that way to me–to me–you brute; you know—-“

“I know all about it, my dear.”

” My dear –bah!” said the lady; “my dear! save that, Mr. Jipson, for some of your–a–a—-“

What Mrs. J. might have said, we scarce could judge; but Jipson just then put in a “rejoinder” calculated to prevent the umpullaceous tone of Mrs. J.’s remarks, by saying, in a very humble strain–

“Mrs. Jipson, don’t make an ass of yourself: we are too old to act like goslings, and too well acquainted, I hope, with the matters-of-fact of every-day life, to quarrel about things beyond our reach or control.”

“If you talk of things beyond your control, Mr. Jipson, I mean beyond your reach, that your income will not permit us to live as other people live—-“

“I wouldn’t like to,” interposed Jipson.

“What?” asked Mrs. Jipson.

“Live like other people–that is, some people, Mrs. Jipson, that I know of.”

“You don’t suppose I’m going to bury myself and my poor girls in this big house, and have those servants standing about me, their fingers in their mouths, with nothing to do but—-“

“But what?”

“But cook, and worry, and slave, and keep shut up for a—-“

“For what?”

“For a–a—-“

But Mrs. J. was stuck. Jipson saw that; he divined what a point Mrs. J. was about to, but could not conscientiously make, so he relieved her with–

“My dear Betsey, it’s a popular fallacy, an exploded idea, a contemptible humbug, to live merely for your neighbors, the rabble world at large. Thousands do it, my dear, and I’ve no objection to their doing it; it’s their own business, and none of mine. I have moved up town because I thought it would be more pleasant; I bought a modest kind of family carriage because I could afford it, and believed it would add to our recreations and health; the carriage and horses required care; I engaged a man to attend to them, fix up the garden, and be useful generally, and added a girl or two to your domestic departments, in order to lighten your own cares, etc. Now, all this, my dear woman, you ought to know, rests a very important responsibility upon my shoulders, health, life, and–two thousand dollars a year, and if you imagine it compatible with common sense, or consonant with my judgment, to make an ass or fool of myself, by going into the extravagances and tom-fooleries of Tannersoil, our neighbor over the way, who happens for the time to be ‘under government,’ with a salary of nothing to speak of, but with stealings equal to those of a successful freebooter, you–you–you have placed a–a bad estimate upon my common sense, Madam.”

With this flaring burst of eloquence, Jipson seized his hat, gloves and cane, and soon might be seen an elderly, natty, well-shaved, slightly-flushed gentleman taking his seat in a down town bound bus, en route for the sugar bakery of the firm of Cutt, Comeagain, & Co. It was evident, however, from the frequency with which Jipson plied his knife and rubber to his “figgers” of the day’s accounts, and the tremulousness with which he drove the porcupine quill, that Jipson was thinking of something else!