Mrs.
Jones, bore this for a while without exhibiting much feeling.

But it fretted her more than she permitted any one to see.

At length, the constant recurrence of the evil--I didn't know as much then as I do now--annoyed me so that I passed from ejaculatory expressions of impatience into more decided and emphatic disapprobation, and to "Psha!" and "there it is again!" and the like were added: "I declare, Mrs.Jones, this is too bad!" or "I've given up hoping for a shirt with a full complement of buttons--" or "If you can't sew the buttons on my shirt, Mrs.Jones, I will hire some one to do it." This last expression of displeasure I never ventured upon but once.
I have always felt ashamed of it since, whenever a recollection of my unreasonableness and impatience in the early times of the shirt button trouble has crossed my mind.

My wife took it so much to heart, and so earnestly avowed her constant solicitude in regard to the shirt buttons, that I resolved from that time, to bear the evil like a man, and instead of grumbling or complaining, make known the fact of a deficiency whenever it occurred, as a good joke.

And so for a year or so it used to be when the buttons were missing: "Buttons again, Mrs.Jones;" or "D'ye see that ?" or "Here's the old story"-- Always said laughingly, and varied as to the mood or fertility of fancy.