"There is one thing, Argie, I should really like Sylvie to have. It
is getting to be almost a necessity, living out of town as we do."

Mr. Argenter's other names were "Increase Muchmore;" but his wife
passed over all that, and called him in the grace of conjugal
intimacy, "Argie."

Increase Muchmore Argenter.

A curious combination; but you need not say it could not have
happened. I have read half a dozen as funny combinations in a single
advertising page of a newspaper, or in a single transit of the city
in a horse-car.

It did not happen altogether without a purpose, either. Mr.
Argenter's father had been fond of money; had made and saved a
considerable sum himself; and always meant that his son should make
and save a good deal more. So he signified this in his cradle and
gave him what he called a lucky name, to begin with. The wife of the
elder Mr. Argenter had been a Muchmore; her only brother had been
named Increase, either out of oddity, such as influenced a certain
Mr. Crabtree whom I have heard of, to call his son Agreen, or
because the old Puritan name had been in the family, or with a like
original inspiration of luck and thrift to that which influenced the
later christening, if you can call it such; and now, therefore,
resulted Increase Muchmore Argenter. The father hung, as it were, a
charm around his son's neck, as Catholics do, giving saints' names
to their children. But young Increase found it, in his earlier
years, rather of the nature of a millstone. It was a good while, for