No matter how pure the motive, a man cannot devote his days to squeezing out pecuniary profits without some moral detriment.

Formerly this woman, Mrs.Wick, with her gimlet eyes, and her leech lips, with her spyings and eavesdroppings, with her sour civility, her stinted discharge of obligations, her pilferings and mendacities, would have rather amused than annoyed him.

"Poor creature, isn't it a miserable as well as a sordid life.

Let her have her pickings, however illegitimate, and much good may they do her." Now he too often found himself regarding her with something like animosity, whereby, to be sure, he brought himself to the woman's level.

Was it not a struggle between him and her for a share of life's poorest comforts?
When he looked at it in that light, his cheeks were hot.
A tradesman must harden himself.