Family life -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Saving and investment -- Fiction
He had his pen ready to write it in the book, when a new difficulty
came to mind.
"Laura!" he exclaimed. "Ten per cent. will not do it! What about the
rent? We spend fifty dollars a month for rent, and that is nothing
we bring into the house. And theater tickets, when you go to town
and buy them there and use them before you come home. And my
lunches. And my club dues. And your pew rent. And ice cream sodas.
And all that sort of thing. We couldn't collect a cent of duty on
any of those things, because we don't bring them into the house. Ten
per cent. is not enough. We ought to make it at least--"
He figured roughly on a sheet of paper, while the other State and
the Territory attended strictly to their occupation of feeding the
Territory.
"I should say, roughly speaking," said Mr. Fenelby, "that to raise
two hundred and fifty dollars a year we ought to make the duty
sixteen and three-quarters per cent., but I don't think that is
advisable. It would be too hard to figure. I might be able to do it,
Laura, but if you bought a waist for one dollar and ninety-eight
cents, and had to figure sixteen and three-quarters per cent. on it,
I don't believe you could do it."
"The idea!" said Mrs. Fenelby. "I would never think of buying a
waist for one dollar and ninety-eight cents. I try to be economical,
Tom, but you know you always like me to look well, and those cheap
waists do not look well, and they are really dearer in the long run,
because they get out of shape in a few days, and never wear well,
anyway. The very cheapest waist I have bought for years was that one
I got for three dollars and forty-seven cents, and I could have done
much better if I had bought the goods and made it up myself."
"Ah--yes," said Mr. Fenelby, hesitatingly. "I am afraid you did not
just catch my meaning, Laura. It does not make any difference
whether the waist costs one dollar and ninety-eight cents or twelve
dollars and sixty-three cents. I mean that it would be a hard job to
figure sixteen and three-quarters per cent. of it. Suppose we leave
the duty at ten per cent. on necessities, and make it thirty per
cent. on luxuries? That ought to make it come out about two hundred
and fifty dollars a year, and if it does not we can have a meeting
of congress any time and raise the duty."
"That would be very nice," said Mrs. Fenelby.
So it was decided that the tariff duty on necessities was to be ten
per cent., and that on luxuries it should be thirty per cent., and
Mr. Fenelby wrote down in the book these facts, and the Fenelby
Tariff was in effect.
II
THE BOX OF BON-BONS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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