CHAPTER IV.
LITTLE THINGS THAT ARE TRIFLES.
I feel that in writing a chapter upon ways and means I may seem to many readers to be going over an oft-traversed road.

Of articles and treatises on the ever-vexing subject there is no end.

The whole human creation or, at all events, a vast majority of it, groaneth and travaileth together in the agony of trying to spread a little substance over a vast surface,--in the desperate endeavor to make a little money go a very long way.

Every few months we notice in a daily newspaper the offer of a money-prize for the best bill of fare for a company-dinner for six people, to be prepared upon a ludicrously-small allowance.

The number of contestants for this prize proves, not only the general interest felt in the subject, but also testifies to the urgent need of the reward on the part of the various would-be winners.
The probabilities are that few of these writers have the means to set forth such a dinner as they describe.
Books portraying the feasibility of "Comfortable living on seven hundred a year," or "How to keep house on a restricted income," are both helpful and pernicious.