Daughters’ allowance—­two 6,000 Son’s allowance 2,500 Self—­clubs, clothes, and so on 2,500 Medical attendance—­including dentist 1,000 Charity 1,500 Travel—­wife’s annual spring trip to Paris 3,500 Opera, theater, music, entertaining at restaurants, and so on 3,500 _____ Total $74,200

A fortune in itself, you may say!  Yet judged by the standards of expenditure among even the unostentatiously wealthy in New York it is moderate indeed.  A friend of mine who has only recently married glanced over my schedule and said, “Why, it’s ridiculous, old man!  No one could live in New York on any such sum.”

Any attempt to “keep house” in the old-fashioned meaning of the phrase would result in domestic disruption.  No cook who was not allowed to do the ordering would stay with us.  It is hopeless to try to save money in our domestic arrangements.  I have endeavored to do so once or twice and repented of my rashness.  One cannot live in the city without motors, and there is no object in living at all if one cannot keep up a scale of living that means comfort and lack of worry in one’s household.

The result is that I am always pressed for money even on an income of seventy-five thousand dollars.  And every year I draw a little on my capital.  Sometimes a lucky stroke on the market or an unexpected fee evens things up or sets me a little ahead; but usually January first sees me selling a few bonds to meet an annual deficit.  Needless to say, I pay no personal taxes.  If I did I might as well give up the struggle at once.  When I write it all down in cold words I confess it seems ridiculous.  Yet my family could not be happy living in any other way.

It may be remarked that the item for charity on the preceding schedule is somewhat disproportionate to the amount of the total expenditure.  I offer no excuse or justification for this.  I am engaged in an honest exposition of fact—­for my own personal satisfaction and profit, and for what lessons others may be able to draw from it.  My charities are negligible.

The only explanation which suggests itself to my mind is that I lead so circumscribed and guarded a life that these matters do not obtrude themselves on me.  I am not brought into contact with the maimed, the halt and the blind; if I were I should probably behave toward them like a gentleman.  The people I am thrown with are all sleek and well fed; but even among those of my friends who make a fad of charity I have never observed any disposition to deprive themselves of luxuries for the sake of others.