Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/29

 that is, he aims at being respectable—in other words, at imposing on those who have been less successful in the universal scramble than himself. Soon he buys a warming-pan, a Dutch oven, china ornaments for his chimneypiece, and the History of the Prodigal to hang about his walls. By degrees, as wealth increases, he moves into a larger residence, he rolls upon wheels, he replaces the china ornaments with a French clock; the Prodigal Son with modern oil-paintings, and hides the warming-pan in the housemaid's closet upstairs. About this period he begins to subscribe to charitable institutions, to give away what he does not want, to throw little pellets of bread at the monster who is always famished and always roaring out of doors, lest it should come in, and snatch the roast beef off his table. Some day a team of black horses with nodding plumes, and a red-nosed driver, come to take him away,