Mr. Mattingford was an exceedingly thrifty
man, and his wife possessed some of the qualities of a spendthrift. Thus
it came about that Mr. Mattingford kept up the fiction that he had no
savings and that each week's salary must see him through till the next
week. Mrs. Mattingford knew that her husband had saved money, and
theoretically she would have given a great deal to know how much. She
repeatedly accused him of being a miser, but this is a wifely
denunciation which in all classes of life is lightly made when the
purchase of feminine finery is under discussion. There are some men who
resent it, but Mr. Mattingford was not one of these. Protests and
prayers, abuse and cajolery, were alike powerless to win his consent to
his wife's perpetual proposal that she should be allowed to draw her
dress allowance for some months, or even some weeks ahead. Mr.
Mattingford had a horror of bad debts. He endeavoured to show his wife
that the transaction she proposed was unsound from a business point of
view and reckless from a legal point of view. She had no security to
offer for the repayment of the advance--even if he were in a financial
position to make the advance--and he stoutly declared that he was not.
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