The Opinions of a Philosopher | Page 6

the agents of the
Board of Health fumigated the establishment with sulphur to kill
scarlet-fever germs. She said it would be cheaper to move than to buy
new wall-papers and window-shades. When I asked how this could be
she waxed a little wroth at what she called my density, and asked if I
did not appreciate that we should have to move at any rate in a year or
two in order to provide the children with a bedroom apiece. The
necessity for this had not occurred to me, I must confess, and I was
making bold to inquire why the two boys could not continue to occupy
one room and their sisters another as in the past, when Josephine added,
in an awful whisper:
"Besides, the house is overrun with cockroaches. Now mind, Fred," she
continued, with an imperative frown, "that is a matter which is not to be
repeated to anyone."
"Why should I wish to repeat it?" I asked, meekly.
"I never know beforehand what you will repeat and what you will not. I
should expect to hear from Jemima Bolles the next time we met that
you had confided it to her husband, and positively I don't care to have
her know. Then, too," Josephine continued, with the manner of one
selecting a few of many grievances to air, "I haven't an inch of
unoccupied closet room; and, moreover, you remember, Fred, that the
plumber said the last time he was here that by good rights the plumbing
ought all to be renewed." My wife dwelt on these concluding words
with insinuating emphasis. She knows that I am daft, as she calls it, on
two points, closing windows on the eve of a thunder-shower and
defective drainage.
"He said that we could manage very well for some time longer without

the slightest real risk," I answered, doughtily.
Josephine's lower lip trembled. Presently she burst out, as though she
had resolved to throw feline argument and sophistic persuasion to the
winds, "I am just tired of this house, Fred, and I should like to move
to-morrow. It is pitifully small and disgustingly dirty with dirt that I
can't get rid of, and everything about it is old as the hills. It has never
been the same place since that fall of soot. If I am obliged to live in it I
shall have to, but I am sure that a new, clean house would add ten years
to my life."
"Jehosophat!" I added, startled by this appeal into borrowing the latest
expletive from the vocabulary of my eldest son, at which Josephine
bridled for an instant, thinking that she had detected blasphemy. When
it dawned upon her that the phrase in question was only one of those
hybrid, meaningless objurgations, the use of which will scarcely justify
a lecture, my darling gulped dismally and waited for me to go on.
I am inclined to think that a gradually evolved tendency of mine not to
go on when I am expected to was what first prompted my wife to dub
me a philosopher. She fancies, dear soul, that she is a loser by this
lately developed proclivity to seek refuge in silence on the occasions
when she or the children sweep down upon me with some hair-lifting
project which craves an immediate decision. But she is in error. It is
true there are times when the sweet onslaught of the sons and daughters
of my house and their mother has brought the old man to terms on the
spot, and wrung from him an immediate permission to do or to spend;
but, on the other hand, Josephine, who in spite of her cunning is no
philosopher, and her offspring little realize how often their feelings
have been saved from laceration by this trick of mine (she calls it a
trick) of saying nothing until I have had time for reflection. No man is
so wise as his wife and children combined, but it takes him a little
while to find it out; and I have discovered that to chew a matter over
and over is the surest way to avoid promulgating a stern refusal.
So it was in this instance. Had I uttered the words which rose to my lips,
I should have felt obliged to inform Josephine that, her premature
taking off to the contrary notwithstanding, to move into another house

was out of the question and totally unnecessary. How could I afford to
move? Why should we move? The dear old house where we had passed
so many joyous years and which Josephine used to say was
extraordinarily convenient! I remember that I became successively irate,
pathetic, and bumptious in my secret soul. I said to myself stoutly that
it was all nonsense, and that by means of