"No squanderin' it on the 'eathen," was his parting injunction as I
left the room; "you spend that on a Christian tradesman."

It was the first money I ever remember having to spend, that
half-crown of old Hasluck's; suggestions of the delights to be derived
from a new pair of gloves for Sunday, from a Latin grammar, which
would then be all my own, and so on, having hitherto displaced all
less exalted visions concerning the disposal of chance coins coming
into my small hands. But on this occasion I was left free to decide
for myself.

The anxiety it gave me! the long tossing hours in bed! the tramping of
the bewildering streets! Even advice when asked for was denied me.

"You must learn to think for yourself," said my father, who spoke
eloquently on the necessity of early acquiring sound judgment and what
he called "commercial aptitude."

"No, dear," said my mother, "Mr. Hasluck wanted you to spend it as you
like. If I told you, that would be spending it as I liked. Your
father and I want to see what you will do with it."

The good little boys in the books bought presents or gave away to
people in distress. For this I hated them with the malignity the
lower nature ever feels towards the higher. I consulted my aunt Fan.

"If somebody gave you half-a-crown," I put it to her, "what would you
buy with it?"