Jerome K. Jerome 
Cost of Kindness 

(Excerpt): "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."