gant, considering she makes out to do all Jaboski's work, and a good deal besides; indeed, I was thinking, as you 'make it a rule' not to give presents, that perhaps we could afford, now Jaboski's wages are saved, to give her four dollars a month."
"My dear! are you raving? You know I make it a rule never to raise wages. You would directly give them the idea we sot a great value on their services."
"So it would, my love—you are right," replied the acquiescing husband, his natural sense of justice soon lost in his habitual subjection to the strong current of his wife's superior selfishness.
The next day, when Mr. Broadson came home to dinner, after two or three extra pinches of snuff, and a-hems and ha-as, he announced to his wife that Jaboski had given him warning he should leave him when his month was up.
"Leave you!—why, what an ungrateful wretch! What reason does he give?"
"Oh, he says he must get porter's wages for porter's work!"
"What impertinence! but 'tis astonishing how soon they all learn it here. Somebody has been talking to him. I thought it was a risk to let him out of the house".
"Yes—that was a mistake. As soon as they learn English, their working for half price is all over.[1] He made out to tell me that the major of
- ↑ A Polish exile once told me that a lady concluded an excessive commendation of one of his countrymen, who served her in the capacity of waiter, by saying, with the utmost naïveté, "I assure you I could not get an American as good for double the wages I pay him!" We may set down disagreeable truths, but no fiction.
