le scale."

A month later, Tom got married. I heard John Monson laughing over the
particulars one day in Betts Shoreham's library, where I am usually
kept, to my great delight, being exceedingly fond of books. The facts
were as follows. It seems Tom had cast an eye on the daughter of a
grocer of reputed wealth, who had attracted the attention of another
person of his own school. To get rid of a competitor, this person
pointed out to Tom a girl, whose father had been a butcher, but had
just retired from business, and was building himself a fine house
somewhere in Butcherland.

"That's your girl," said the treacherous adviser. "All butchers are
rich, and they never build until their pockets are so crammed as to
force them to it. They coin money, and spend nothing. Look how high
beef has been of late years; and then they live on the smell of their
own meats. This is your girl. Only court the old fellow, and you are
sure of half a million in the long run."

Tom was off on the instant. He did court the old fellow; got introduced
to the family; was a favorite from the first; offered in a fortnight,
was accepted, and got married within the month. Ten days afterward, the
supplies were stopped for want of funds, and the butcher failed. It
seems HE, too, was only taking a hand in the great game of brag that
most of the country had sat down to.

Tom was in a dilemma. He had married a butcher's daughter. After this,
every door in Broadway and Bond street was shut upon him. Instead of
stepping into society on his wife's shoulders, he was dragged out of it
by the skirts, through her agency. Then there was not a dollar. His
empty pockets were balanced by her empty pockets. The future offered a
sad perspective. Tom consulted a lawyer about a divorce, on the ground
of "false pretences." He was even ready to make an affidavit that he
had been slaughtered. But it would not do. The marriage was found to
stand all the usual tests, and Tom went to Texas.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief, by
James Fenimore Cooper

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