I can't think of anything else but the way the expenses mount up.

Everybody getting so reckless and extravagant and I _won't_ go in debt! I'll come to it, though.
Everybody else does.

We're the only people that haven't oriental rugs now.

Why, the Gilberts--and everybody knows how much they still owe Dr.Melton for Ellen's appendicitis, and their grocer told Ralph they owe him several hundred dollars--well, they have just got an oriental rug that they paid a hundred and sixty dollars for.

Mrs.Gilbert said they 'just _had_ to have it, and you can always have what you have to have.' It makes me sick! Our parlor looks so common! And the last dinner party we gave cost--' Another phase of the _squirrel cage worry_ is expressed in this terse paragraph: 'Father keeps talking about getting one of those player-pianos, but Mother says they are so new you can't tell what they are going to be.