University of Virginia Library

SHOULD THE ASTORS LUG OFF THE MONEY?

THIS is the way Astors are made: A Munson-street man, being told that there were several pieces of tin which needed mending, conceived the idea of getting an iron and solder, and doing the mending himself. His wife, filled with vague forebodings perhaps, said that the expense was such a trifle, that it would hardly pay to do it one's self; to which he responded,—

"I'll admit, that, in this one instance, it would not pay: but there is something being in want of repair every little while; and, if I have the tools here for fixing it, we are saved just so much expense right along. It may not be much in the course of a year; but every little helps, and, in time, the total would amount to a nice little lump. We don't want the Astors lugging off all the money in the country, by gracious!"

He got the iron (one dollar), and fifty cents' worth of solder, and ten cents' worth of rosin. He came home with these things, and went into the

kitchen, looking so proud and happy, that his wife would have been glad he got them, were it not for an overpowering dread of an impending muss. He called for the articles needing repair. His wife brought out a pan.

"Where's the rest? Bring 'em all out, an' let me make one job of 'em while I'm about it."

He got them all, and seemed to be disappointed that there were not more of them. He pushed the iron into the fire, got a milk-pan inverted on his knee, and, with the solder in his hand, waited for the right heat.

"That iron only cost a dollar, and it'll never wear out; and there is enough solder in this piece to do twenty-five dollars' worth of mending," he explained to his wife.

Pretty soon the iron was at the right heat, he judged. He rubbed the rosin about the hole which was to be repaired, held the stick of solder over it, and carefully applied the iron. It was an intensely interesting moment. His wife watched him with feverish interest. He said, speaking laboriously as he applied the iron, "The-only-thing-I-regret-about-it-is-that-I-didn't-think-of-getting-this-before-we"—Then ascended through that ceiling, and up into the very vault of heaven, the awfullest yell that woman ever heard; and the same instant the soldering-iron flew over the stove, the pan went clattering across the floor, and the bar of solder struck the wall with

such force as to smash right through both the plaster and lath. And before her horrified gaze danced her husband in an ecstasy of agony, sobbing, screaming, and holding on to his left leg as desperately as if it was made of solid gold, and studded with diamonds.

"Get the camphor, why don't you?" he yelled "Send for a doctor! Oh-oh, I'm a dead man!" he shouted.

Just then his gaze rested on the soldering-iron. In an instant he caught it up, and hurled it through the window, without the preliminary of raising the sash.

It was some time before the thoroughly frightened and confused woman learned that some of the molten solder had run through the hole in the pan, and on to his leg, although she knew from the first that something of an unusual nature had occurred. She didn't send for the doctor. She made and applied the poultices herself,—to save expenses. She said,—

"We don't want the Astors lugging off all the money in the country, by gracious!"

"Come, Maria, don't you be too cunning," he sheepishly expostulated.