Egg alone. It takes a good deal of surplus to stand that.'"

"'Serve her right,' said Ethel 'And I would say so to her face.'"

"September brought freshness to the stock market but not to me. Mr.
Beverly, like the well-to-do man that he was, remained away in Europe
until October should require his presence as a guiding hand in the
office. Thus was I left without his buoyant consolation in the face of my
investments."

"Petunias were being adjusted on a four per cent basis; Dutchess and
Columbia Traction was holding its own; I could not complain of
Amalgamated Electric, though it was now lower than when I had bought it,
while had I sold it on that Wednesday in May when Ethel begged me, before
the increased dividend turned out a mistake, I should have made money.
But Philippi Sewers were threatened; Pasteurised Feeders had been numb
since June; Pollyopolis Heat, Light, Power, Paving, Pressing, and Packing
was going to pass its quarterly dividend; and Standard Egg had gone down
from 63 to 7 1/8. My million dollars on paper now was worth in reality
less than a quarter of that sum, and although we could still make both
ends meet fairly well in some place where you wouldn't want to live, like
Philadelphia, in New York we should drop into a pinched and dwarfed
obscurity."

"I must say now, and I shall never forget, that Ethel during these gloomy
weeks behaved much better than I did. The grayer the outlook became, the
more words of hope and sense she seemed to find She reminded me that,
after all my Uncle Godfrey's legacy had been a thing unlooked for,
something out of my scheme of life that I had my youth, my salary and my
writing; and that she would wait till she was as old at Mr. Beverly's