d the Hooligans who fight over the
price of a pint of beer. It's just as difficult to know what to do with
money when you've got it as it is to know what to do without it when
you haven't got it; and a million dollars between husband and wife is a
bigger gulf than a $10 a week salary. It's not a question of the amount
of money, but the question of who shall spend it that makes all the
trouble."

"But don't you see," argued the bachelor, sitting up suddenly and
knocking the ashes out of his pipe, "that all that would be eliminated
if people would make marriage a business proposition? For instance, if
two people would discuss the situation rationally and make the terms
before marriage; if the man would state the services he requires and the
woman would demand the compensation she thinks she deserves----"

"Ugh!" shuddered the widow, putting her hands over her eyes, "that
would be like writing your epitaph and choosing the style of your
coffin."

"And every man," pursued the bachelor, "would be willing to give his
wife her board and room and a salary adequate to her services and to his
income----"

"And to let her eat with the family," jeered the widow.

"Well," finished the bachelor, "then marriage wouldn't offer the poorest
returns in the professional market. And, besides," he added, "there
would be fewer wives sitting about in apartment hotels holding their
hands and ordering the bellboys around, while their husbands are down
town fretting and struggling themselves into bankruptcy; and fewer
husbands spending their nights and their money out with the boys, while
their wives are bending over the cook stove and the sewing machine,
trying to make ends meet on nothing a year."

"But that," cried the widow, taking her hands down from her eyes, "would
mean spending your courtship talking stocks and bonds and dividends!"

"And the rest of your life forgetting them and talking love," declared
the bachelor, triumphantly.

The widow looked up speculatively.

"Well--perhaps," she acquiesced, "if courtship were more of a business
proposition marriage would be less of a failure. Anyhow, you'd know in
advance just what a man considered you worth in dollars and cents."

"And you'd eliminate all the uncertainty," added the bachelor.

"And the chance of having to beg for your carfare and pin money."

"And of having to go bankrupt for matinee tickets and Easter hats."

"And of being asked what you did with your allowance."