rry his wife's father, there's
nothing in the marriage vow to prevent the old man from borrowing money
of him, and you can bet if he's old Job Dashkam he'll do it. A man can't
pick his own mother, but he can pick his son's mother, and when he
chooses a father-in-law who plays the bucket shops, he needn't be
surprised if his own son plays the races.

Never marry a poor girl who's been raised like a rich one. She's simply
traded the virtues of the poor for the vices of the rich without going
long on their good points. To marry for money or to marry without money
is a crime. There's no real objection to marrying a woman with a
fortune, but there is to marrying a fortune with a woman. Money makes
the mare go, and it makes her cut up, too, unless she's used to it and
you drive her with a snaffle-bit.

While you are at it, there's nothing like picking out a good-looking
wife, because even the handsomest woman looks homely sometimes, and so
you get a little variety; but a homely one can only look worse than
usual. Beauty is only skin deep, but that's deep enough to satisfy any
reasonable man. (I want to say right here that to get any sense out of a
proverb I usually find that I have to turn it wrong side out.) Then,
too, if a fellow's bound to marry a fool, and a lot of men have to if
they're going to hitch up into a well-matched team, there's nothing like
picking a good-looking one.

I simply mention these things in a general way, because it seems to me,
from the gait at which you're starting off, that you'll likely find
yourself roped and branded any day, without quite knowing how it
happened, and I want you to understand that the girl who marries you for
my money is getting a package of green goods in more ways than one. I
think, though, if you really understood what marrying on twelve a week
meant, you would have bought a bedroom set instead of roses with that
fifty-two you owe.

Speaking of marrying the old man's money by proxy naturally takes me
back to my old town in Missouri and the case of Chauncey Witherspoon
Hoskins. Chauncey's father was the whole village, barring the railroad
station and the saloon, and, of course, Chauncey thought that he was
something of a pup himself. So he was, but not just the kind that
Chauncey thought he was. He stood about five foot three in his pumps,
had a nice pinky complexion, pretty wavy hair, and a curly mustache. All
he needed was a blue ribbon around his neck to make you call,