He always said to himself--but never so much as a word of it to any
one else--that if his wife hadn't driven him to distraction with her
nagging he would have avoided the happy though disastrous pitfalls
into which he stumbled in his desperate efforts to find appreciation.
He would have remained an honourable, faithful spouse to her, and an
abstainer--as such things go. He would have shared with her the love
and respect of their three children, and he would have staved off
bankruptcy with the very hundred thousand dollars that she exacted as
spite money. But she was a nagger, and he was no Job. There was a
modicum of joy in the heart of him, however: having been cleaned out
to the last penny, he was in no position to come up monthly with the
thousand dollars charged against him by the court for the support and
maintenance of two of his children until they reached their majority.
He took a savage delight in contemplating the rage of his late wife
when she realised that the children would have to be provided for out
of the income from the one hundred thousand she had received in a lump
sum, and he even thanked God that she was without means beyond this
hateful amount.
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