The rather helpless Johnsons next door had a check bounce, and so George Baxter goes over their finances. It turns out that their investments are sound - for 1915. They have shares in corset companies, buggy whip companies, and kerosene lantern companies. And Herbert Johnson proudly proclaims that he has cornered the market in whalebone.
George says that the Johnsons still have a nest egg, but they'll need to cut back severely, as in letting their maid go. Herbert Johnson would like to get a job, but his only talent is that he earned a degree in dead languages in his youth. Hazel works to get the Johnsons back on her feet given their new circumstances, good soul that she is.
There's some wry social commentary going on when it comes to the Johnsons concerning the idle rich. They apparently came from great wealth - Herbert's dad was a kind of wizard of Wall Street, but he must have been too busy giving Herbert the kind of carefree life that he never had without bothering to teach him anything practical about life. There's an old saying that says "Leave your kids enough money that they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing." I think of that saying when I see the Johnsons.
George says that the Johnsons still have a nest egg, but they'll need to cut back severely, as in letting their maid go. Herbert Johnson would like to get a job, but his only talent is that he earned a degree in dead languages in his youth. Hazel works to get the Johnsons back on her feet given their new circumstances, good soul that she is.
There's some wry social commentary going on when it comes to the Johnsons concerning the idle rich. They apparently came from great wealth - Herbert's dad was a kind of wizard of Wall Street, but he must have been too busy giving Herbert the kind of carefree life that he never had without bothering to teach him anything practical about life. There's an old saying that says "Leave your kids enough money that they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing." I think of that saying when I see the Johnsons.
