'I Sat Down With Silver Plate Every Sunday,' Said
He, 'and Pictures On The Wall.
I have made enough money to be
rolling in my carriage.
But, sir,' looking at me unsteadily with
his bright rheumy eyes, 'I was troubled with a drunken wife.' He
took a hostile view of matrimony in consequence. 'It's an old
saying,' he remarked: 'God made 'em, and the devil he mixed 'em.'
I think he was justified by his experience. It was a dreary story.
He would bring home three pounds on Saturday, and on Monday all the
clothes would be in pawn. Sick of the useless struggle, he gave up
a paying contract, and contented himself with small and ill-paid
jobs. 'A bad job was as good as a good job for me,' he said; 'it
all went the same way.' Once the wife showed signs of amendment;
she kept steady for weeks on end; it was again worth while to
labour and to do one's best. The husband found a good situation
some distance from home, and, to make a little upon every hand,
started the wife in a cook-shop; the children were here and there,
busy as mice; savings began to grow together in the bank, and the
golden age of hope had returned again to that unhappy family. But
one week my old acquaintance, getting earlier through with his
work, came home on the Friday instead of the Saturday, and there
was his wife to receive him reeling drunk.
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