more than L20 per annum . . . . . . . 45 0 0
By saving in food . . . . . . . . . . . 20 0 0
----------
L95 0 0


It will be seen that I allowed no reduction in clothes and books, for I
did not wish my children to be dressed as beggars, or to be ignorant of
current literature.

It does not need the eye of a chartered accountant to perceive that
whatever may be said for Table II., Table I. is not satisfactory. In
it I accounted for only 268 pounds, whereas I have already stated my
total income was 320 pounds. What became of the 52 pounds which found
no record in my ingenuous schedule? I could not tell, but I was pretty
sure that it was absorbed in the petty wastefulness of town life.
Londoners are so accustomed to constant daily expenditure in small
ways, that it occurs to no one to ascertain how considerable an
encroachment this aggregate expenditure is upon the total yearly
income. In all but very fine weather I must needs use some means of
public conveyance every day; there was a daily lunch to be provided;
and when work kept me late at the office there was tea as well. One
can lunch comfortably on a shilling or eighteenpence a day; and I knew
places where I could have lunched for much less, but they were in parts
of the town which I could not reach in the brief time at my disposal.
Moreover, one must needs be the slave of etiquette even though he be a
clerk, and if all the staff of an office frequent a certain restaurant,
one must perforce fall into line with them under penalty of social
ostracism. Thus, whether I liked it or not, for five days in the week
I had to spend eighteenpence a day for lunch, and fourpence for teas;