THE COST OF KINDNESS     

  

       By Jerome K. Jerome     

   

   

       "Kindness," argued little Mrs. Pennycoop, "costs nothing."     

       "And, speaking generally, my dear, is valued precisely at cost price,"       retorted Mr. Pennycoop, who, as an auctioneer of twenty years' experience, had enjoyed much opportunity of testing the attitude of the public towards sentiment.     

       "I don't care what you say, George," persisted his wife; "he may be a disagreeable, cantankerous old brute—I don't say he isn't. All the same, the man is going away, and we may never see him again."     

       "If I thought there was any fear of our doing so," observed Mr. Pennycoop,       "I'd turn my back on the Church of England to-morrow and become a Methodist."     

       "Don't talk like that, George," his wife admonished him, reprovingly; "the Lord might be listening to you."     

       "If the Lord had to listen to old Cracklethorpe He'd sympathize with me,"       was the opinion of Mr. Pennycoop.     

       "The Lord sends us our trials, and they are meant for our good," explained his wife. "They are meant to teach us patience."     

       "You are not churchwarden," retorted her husband; "you can get away from him. You hear him when he is in the pulpit, where, to a certain extent, he is bound to keep his temper."     

       "You forget the rummage sale, George," Mrs. Pennycoop reminded him; "to say nothing of the church decorations."     

       "The rummage sale," Mr. Pennycoop pointed out to her, "occurs only once a year, and at that time your own temper, I have noticed—"     

       "I 

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