The Goldfish | Page 7

usually some alteration under way, a partition to be taken out,
a hall to be paneled, a parquet floor to be relaid, a new sort of heating
apparatus to be installed, and always plumbing. Generally, also, at least
one room has to be done over and refurnished every year, and this is an
expensive matter. The guest room, recently refurnished in this way at
my daughter's request, cost thirty-seven hundred dollars. Since we
average not more than two guests for a single night annually, their
visits from one point of view will cost me this year eighteen hundred
and fifty dollars apiece.
Then, too, styles change. There is always new furniture, new carpets,
new hangings--pictures to be bought. Last season my wife changed the
drawing room from Empire to Louis Seize at a very considerable
outlay.
Our food, largely on account of the number of our servants, costs us
from a thousand to twelve hundred dollars a month. In the spring and
autumn it is a trifle less--in winter it is frequently more; but it averages,

with wine, cigars, ice, spring water and sundries, over fifteen thousand
dollars a year.
We rent a house at the seashore or in the country in summer at from
five to eight thousand dollars, and usually find it necessary to employ a
couple of men about the place.
Our three saddle-horses cost us about two thousand dollars for stabling,
shoeing and incidentals; but they save me at least that in doctors' bills.
Since my wife and daughters are fond of society, and have different
friends and different nightly engagements, we are forced to keep two
motors and two chauffeurs, one of them exclusively for night-work. I
pay these men one hundred and twenty-five dollars each a month, and
the garage bill is usually two hundred and fifty more, not counting tires.
At least one car has to be overhauled every year at an average expense
of from two hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars. Both cars have to
be painted annually. My motor service winter and summer costs on a
conservative estimate at least eight thousand dollars.
I allow my wife five thousand dollars; my daughters three thousand
each; and my son, who is not entirely independent, twenty-five hundred.
This is supposed to cover everything; but it does not--it barely covers
their bodies. I myself expend, having no vices, only about twenty-five
hundred dollars.
The bills of our family doctor, the specialists and the dentist are never
less than a thousand dollars, and that is a minimum. They would
probably average more than double that.
Our spring trip to Paris, for rest and clothing, has never cost me less
than thirty-five hundred dollars, and when it comes to less than five
thousand it is inevitably a matter of mutual congratulation.
Our special entertaining, our opera box, the theater and social frivolities
aggregate no inconsiderable sum, which I will not overestimate at
thirty-five hundred dollars.

Our miscellaneous subscriptions to charity and the like come to about
fifteen hundred dollars.
The expenses already recited total nearly seventy-five thousand dollars,
or as much as my maximum income. And this annual budget contains
no allowance for insurance, books, losses at cards, transportation,
sundries, the purchase of new furniture, horses, automobiles, or for any
of that class of expenditure usually referred to as "principal" or "plant."
I inevitably am obliged to purchase a new motor every two or three
years--usually for about six thousand dollars; and, as I have said, the
furnishing of our city house is never completed.
It is a fact that for the last ten years I have found it an absolute
impossibility to get along on seventy-five thousand dollars a year, even
living without apparent extravagance. I do not run a yacht or keep
hunters or polo ponies. My wife does not appear to be particularly
lavish and continually complains of the insufficiency of her allowance.
Our table is not Lucullan, by any means; and we rarely have game out
of season, hothouse fruit or many flowers. Indeed, there is an elaborate
fiction maintained by my wife, cook and butler that our establishment
is run economically and strictly on a business basis. Perhaps it is. I
hope so. I do not know anything about it. Anyhow, here is the smallest
budget on which I can possibly maintain my household of five adults:
ANNUAL BUDGET--MINIMUM--FOR FAMILY OF FIVE
PERSONS
Taxes on city house $ 3,200 Repairs, improvements and minor
alterations 2,500 Rent of country house--average 7,000 Gardeners and
stablemen, and so on 800 Servants' payroll 7,800 Food supplies 15,000
Light and heat--gas, electricity, coal and wood 2,400
Saddle-horses--board and so on 2,000 Automobile expenses 8,000
Wife's allowance--emphatically insufficient 5,000 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