necessary for the occasion; and they take care
that it shall supply them with these to
perfection. I have known many of these people in
my time, and have always wondered how they
did it. They look so spruce and well-
preserved; they conceal so thoroughly all the jags
and tags of poverty, that I am for ever lost in
amazement as to how it is all managed, and look
upon their power of making a show upon
nothing as among the uncatalogued marvels of the
time. It is done partly by a rigid line of
demarcation drawn between home and society. I
have seen my friends under both flags, and,
truly, as unlike as is the creeping worm to the
painted butterfly, so is the fresh, well-preserved,
and perfectly appointed creature of society, when
in the world, to himself in his home character.
Anything is good enough for him. House,
food, garments, service—what does it signify?
So long as they can pinch and nip here, to spend
all they save on society, they are content, and
think that they are carrying out the design of
their creation. Butterflies abroad, dirty little
grubs at home—that is how they do it.

Some spend their margin on literature. They
see all the new books, and are familiar with all
the magazines; books which you, my dear sir,
with even your income and leisure, have not
seen, they have read from preface to finis, and
judge you small and miserable in proportion to
your ignorance. This, again, is one of those small
domestic wonders which to this hour remain
dark riddles to me. Where do they find time
for all this reading? and where do they get the
money for it? Books which I want to read and
cannot afford to buy, and could not find time
for even if I had bought them, my studious
impecunious friends both buy and study
diligently. How it is done I cannot divine; all I
know is that it is the employment of the
margin; but the very existence of a margin which
can be so employed is a wonder to me.

Some employ their margin on flowers, some
on horses, some on music, and not a few on
doctors' fees and chemists' bills. In fact, I
think that these last belong to margins in
the proportion of ninety-nine to a hundred, and
that, given a monetary narrowness absolutely
free of bordering, both doctors' fees and chemists'
bills would become, for the most part, fantastic
follies. Then some people, very near to godliness,
spend their money on cleanliness. However
poor they may be, you never see them
dirty, squalid, or neglected. They live in
a halo of freshness; their houses are faultless,
their personal appointments absolutely
without stain; but then they spend all their
spare cash in cleaning materials and renewals,
and are never so happy as when they are
polishing, and scrubbing, and washing, and
cleaning, and putting a new face and a better
gloss upon any old odds and ends they may
possess. People with twice their income have
not half their niceness; and somehow they
contrive to look better in their dainty poverty than
nine-tenths of the well endowed who have not
their keen sense of sweetness.

For myself, I know of no better way of
spending one's margin. It is undoubtedly to
be preferred to any of those of which I have
been speaking; even to that not unamiable
one of making presents, which is also a manner
of writing off a surplus not to be harshly judged
under certain aspects. It is not to be
commended when practised unnecessarily. I know
one or two people, certainly very ill off in worldly
goods, who are always making presents to their
better provided friends. It may be only an
antimacassar of the last new pattern, or a
collar, or a pair of cuffs, or a penwiper, or a
set of d'Oyleys, or some trifle of the same kind;
but does not the least of these trifles cost
money, and where do they get the money from,
small in amount as it may be? It is very good
of them, no one denies that; but at times it is
grievously embarrassing. One does not know
what to do for or with poor people who give one
useless presents; one cannot pay them for
their time or material, and one cannot refuse to
take their offering; it is a perplexity, not
productive of gratitude. If the presents come
from the poor to the still poorer, that is another
matter; that is good and grand and generous;
but I am speaking now only of the little
nothings given to those who do not want them by
those who do want the money they cost, and
the consequent uneasiness at what one feels to
be a mal-appropriation of margin. This is not,
however, a very general form of reducing one's
surplus, so it is not necessary to expend much
virtuous opposition thereon. The mania for
giving is not one of the most prevalent in these
our days; and, after all, there are worse manias,
all things considered, provided the gifts are
made honestly, in love, and not thrown out as
sprats wherewith to catch herrings. Then,
indeed, they deserve condemnation, not praise;
and to be trampled under foot, not carried
honourably in the hand.

THE DEVIL OUTWITTED

AN HUNGARIAN POPULAR TALE

In those dreadful days when devils had full
power to assume various mortal forms, and in
pursuit of their avocation to wander over the
wide earth, a very old malignant devil left his
subterranean abode. Having heard of the
wonderful bliss which was enjoyed by human
beings in their marriage life, he determined
himself to make an attempt to enter into that
happy state.

But he was so old and so ugly that by no
device and no disguise could he conceal the
deformity of his person, and every approach he
made towards a pretty maiden was repelled
with contumely and scorn. This grieved and
exasperated him beyond all bounds, and he
sunk into the depths of despair, having
exhausted every art of fascination and eloquence.
In this miserable state of things he determined
to address himself to a hideous ancient hag who
had already sent six husbands to their graves;