"What about stage and car hire? Do you ride or walk to and from
business?"

"I ride, of course. You wouldn't expect me to walk nearly a mile
four times a day."

"I never ride, except in bad weather. The walk gives me just the
exercise I need. Every man, who is confined in a store or
counting-room during business hours, should walk at least four miles
a day. Taken in installments of one mile at a time, at good
intervals, there is surely no hardship in this exercise. Four rides,
at six-pence a ride and we have another item of twenty-five cents at
day. You go down town nearly every evening?"

"Yes."

"And ride both ways?

"Yes."

"A shilling more, or thirty seven and a half cents daily for car and
stage hire. Now for another little calculation. Three hundred days,
at three shillings a day. There it is."

And Hamilton reached a slip of paper to his friend.

"Impossible!" The latter actually started to his feet. "A hundred
and twelve dollars and fifty cents!"