Let me scrimp and squeeze all I can, I still can't get ahead as
fast as I feel I ought to, with my opportunities. Bless you, sir, at a
time when I had seventy-two wives in this house, I groaned under the
pressure of keeping thousands of dollars tied up in seventy-two bedsteads
when the money ought to have been out at interest; and I just sold out
the whole stock, sir, at a sacrifice, and built a bedstead seven feet
long and ninety-six feet wide. But it was a failure, sir. I could not
sleep. It appeared to me that the whole seventy-two women snored at once.
The roar was deafening. And then the danger of it! That was what I was
looking at. They would all draw in their breath at once, and you could
actually see the walls of the house suck in--and then they would all
exhale their breath at once, and you could see the walls swell out, and
strain, and hear the rafters crack, and the shingles grind together. My
friend, take an old man's advice, and don't encumber yourself with a
large family--mind, I tell you, don't do it. In a small family, and in a
small family only, you will find that comfort and that peace of mind
which are the best at last of the blessings this world is able to afford
us, and for the lack of which no accumulation of wealth, and no
acquisition of fame, power, and greatness can ever compensate us.
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