. Jones, I will hire
some one to do it."

This last expression of displeasure I never ventured upon but once.
I have always felt ashamed of it since, whenever a recollection of
my unreasonableness and impatience in the early times of the shirt
button trouble has crossed my mind. My wife took it so much to
heart, and so earnestly avowed her constant solicitude in regard to
the shirt buttons, that I resolved from that time, to bear the evil
like a man, and instead of grumbling or complaining, make known the
fact of a deficiency whenever it occurred, as a good joke. And so
for a year or so it used to be when the buttons were missing:

"Buttons again, Mrs. Jones;" or

"D'ye see that?" or

"Here's the old story"--

Always said laughingly, and varied as to the mood or fertility of
fancy. But on so grave a subject as shirt buttons, Mrs. Jones had no
heart for a joke. The fact that her vigilance had proved all in
vain, and that, spite of constant care, a shirt had found its way
into my drawer, lacking its full complement of buttons, was
something too serious for a smile or a jest, and my words, no matter
how lightly spoken, would be felt as a reproof. Any allusion,
therefore, to shirt buttons, was sure to produce a cloud upon the
otherwise calm brow of Mrs. Jones. It was a sore subject, and could
not be touched even by the light end of a feather without producing
pain.

What was I to do? Put off with the lack of a shirt button
uncomplainingly? Pin my collar, if the little circular piece of bone
or ivory were gone, and not hint at the omission? Yes; I resolved
not to say a word more about shirt buttons, but to bear the evil,
whenever it occurred, with the patience of a martyr. Many days had
not passed after this resolution was taken, before, on changing my
linen one morning, I found that there was a button less than the
usual number on the bosom of my shirt. Mrs. Jones had been up on the
evening before, half an hour after I was in bed, looking over my
shirts, to see if every thing was in order. But even her sharp eyes
had failed to discover the place left vacant by a deserting member
of the shirt button fraternity. I knew she had done her best, and I
pitied, rather than blamed her, for I was sensible that a knowledge
of the fact which had just come to light would trouble her a
thousand times more than it did me.

The breakfast hour passed without a discovery by Mrs. Jones of the
fact that there was a button off of the