To the people afflicted with these loose spending habits I would commend
the lesson of a little incident I saw in a tram on the Embankment the other
evening. There entered and sat beside me a working man, carrying his "kit"
in a handkerchief, and wearing a scarf round his neck, a cloth cap, and
corduroy trousers--obviously a labourer earning perhaps 25s. a week. He
paid his fare, and then he took from his pocket a packet tied up in a
handkerchief. He untied the knot, and there came forth a neat pocket-book
with pencil attached. He opened it, and began to write. My curiosity was
too much for my manners. Out of the tail of my eye I watched the motion of
his fingers, and this is what he wrote: "Tram 1-1/2 _d_." In a flash I
seemed to see the whole orderly life of that poor labourer. He had an
anchorage in the tossing seas of this troublesome world. He had got hold of
a lesson that Lady Ida Sitwell ought to try and learn during the next three
months. It is this: Watch your spendings.

For it is the people who are more concerned about getting money than about
how they spend it who come to grief. A very acute observer once told me
that the principal difference between the Scotch people and the Lancashire
people was that the former thought most about how they spent, and the
latter most about how much they got. And the difference, he said, was the
difference between a thrifty and an unthrifty people. I think that is true.
Nothing is more common than to find people worse off as they get better
off. They have learned the art of getting money and lost the art of
spending it wisely. They pay their way on £200 a year and get hopelessly
into debt on £500. They are safe in a rowing boat, but capsize in a sailing
boat.

Here is an axiom which I offer to all spendthrifts: We cannot command our
incomings; but we can control outgoings.