 | Life and sayings of Mrs. Partington and others
of the family |  |
EXCELLENT ADVICE.
“Never get in debt, Isaac,” said Mrs. Partington;
and she raised her tea-spoon with an oracular air, and
held it thus, as if from it were suspended the threads of
a fine argument on economy, discernible to her eye alone,
and she was watching an opportunity to make it tangible.
“Never get in debt, no matter whether you are
creditable or not; it is better to live on a crust of bread
and water and a herring or two, than cows and oxen cut
up into rump steaks, and owe for it. Think of our
neighbor; what a failing he had, and had all his goods
and impertinences took away on a mean procession and
sold, and his poor wife reduced to a calico gound, starvation,
and shushon tea, and he in Californy!”
“Some tea, please,” said Ike, as he handed over his
tin dipper. The tea, like her own reflections, trickled
out musically; and she passed along the caution, with the
cream and sugar, never to get in debt.
| Life and sayings of Mrs. Partington and others
of the family | |