"Your memory's better than mine, a long way." "Ah," said the old man, with a chuckle, "folks lived different in my day.

There weren't no gas, and there weren't no railroads, and London tradespeople was content to live in the same house from year's end to year's end.

But now your tradesman must go on his foreign tours, like a prince of the royal family, and he must go here and go there; and when he's been everywhere, he caps it all by going through the Gazette.
Folks stayed at home in my day; but they made their fortunes, and they kept their health, and their eyesight, and their memory, and their hearing, and many of 'em have lived to see the next generation make fools of themselves." "Why, father," cried Anthony junior, aghast at this flood of eloquence, "what an oration!" "And it ain't often I make an oration, is it, Tony ?" said the old man, laughing.

"I only mean to say that if my memory's pretty bright, it may be partly because I haven't frittered it away upon nonsense, as some folks have.

I've stayed at home and minded my own business, and left other people to mind theirs.