"
"Good! Aleck!"
"Yes, dear?"
"How much of the income can we spend?"
"The whole of it."
It seemed to her husband that a ton of chains fell from his limbs.
He did not say a word; he was happy beyond the power of speech.
After that, they broke the Sabbaths right along as fast as they
turned up. It is the first wrong step that counts. Every Sunday
they put in the whole day, after morning service, on inventions
--inventions of ways to spend the money. They got to continuing this
delicious dissipation until past midnight; and at every seance Aleck
lavished millions upon great charities and religious enterprises,
and Sally lavished like sums upon matters to which (at first)
he gave definite names. Only at first. Later the names gradually
lost sharpness of outline, and eventually faded into "sundries,"
thus becoming entirely--but safely--undescriptive. For Sally
was crumbling. The placing of these millions added seriously
and most uncomfortably to the family expenses--in tallow candles.
For a while Aleck was worried. Then, after a little, she ceased
to worry, for the occasion of it was gone. She was pained,
she was grieved, she was ashamed; but she said nothing, and so became
an accessory. Sally was taking candles; he was robbing the store.
It is ever thus. Vast wealth, to the person unaccustomed to it,
is a bane; it eats into the flesh and bone of his morals.
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