The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1890-04-19
CHRONIC BORROWERS,
revelations by a Lady Writer Who Seems
to Know All About Them


Revelations by a Lady Writer Who Seems
to Know All About Them.
If you are buying a house in a
nelghborhood unknown to you, you
will naturally ask all kinds of ques-
tons. You will want to know if the
drainage is good, if the air is pure, if
there has ever been malaria, how far
it is to the depot and postofice, but
ten to one you don't inquire if there
are any borrowers in the neighborhood.
Now, a chronic borrower is a deadly
nuisance in a community. A woman
who is always ''just out" of saleratus
will stir up moro trouble in a neighbor-
hood than mad dog and a flock of
fifteen hens and rooster.
She will run in on you at any and
all hours, and want to borrow just a
little sugar, or spice, till she can send
to the grocer's. She really did not
know she was anywhere near out till
she went about her cooking, and then
she found she hadn't dust of sugar
in the house, and not soul around
anywhere that she could sent out after
any.
And she will tell you that she does
so hate to trouble you; for if there is
anything on earth she dislikes to do it
is to bo. -ow-and she never does it
when she can help it; but now her pie
crust is all on the plates, and she was
obliged to, because she could not
spare the time to run to the grocer's.
And she will sit down in your kitchen
and stop half an hour, and talk about
everybody in town; and, meanwhile,
she will take an account of every
thing her eyes fall on, and she will see
behind your stove the cobwebs that
you forgot to brush down this morn.
ing; and she will notice the old boots
that your husband left on the wood
box to dry, and she will see that your
lamp chimneys have not been washed.
and that your dishes are in the sink.
and that you had ham for breakfast
by the spatter Of grease on the stove;
and when she goes into some other
nelghbor's house on a borrowing expe-
dition she will give a report Of what
she saw in your kitchen, and swear
the neighbor over to eternal secrecy
regarding it.; and the consequence
will be that in week it will be all
over town that your folks live on ham,
and that you are the most untidy
housekeeper on the footstool.
When the borrower returns what
she borrows it is always in a little small.
er measure, If, indeed, she returns it
at all. And you may congratulate
yourself if you get half what belongs
to YOU rso,,,., ho,,o,,,.,, ,.;,,
AVQrVfh1nCr 80 ~,
for breakfast down to your boy, if you
have one.
The book borrower is even greater
nuisance than the woman who borrows
household supplies. She never hest
tates to ask for the choicest or costli-
est books in your house. And she
seems to think that she confers favor
ON you by SO asking.
=, And II you are fool enough to lend,
the possibility is that you will have to
go after the books in question, and
Will lind on doing so that she has lent
them to some friend of hers, who
wanted to read them, and she will tell
you that she knew you would be will
lng-you are so good natured.
In course of our life we have been
asked to lend everything in the book
line that ever we owned, except our
Bible, and somehow nobody ever
seemed to care about borrowing that,
and In nine cases out of ten when we
have complied our literature has come
back to us in a shape that fitted it only
Tor kindling-if, indeed, we were
lucky enough ever to set eyes on it.
SO we say to all our friends, if it be
possible to avoid it, never have Dor
rover for neighbor.-New York
Weekly.