to Staten Island, or to Hoboken, or up the river, or--but no matter
where; you go about and spend money on the Sabbath day. How much
does all this cost? A dollar a week? Seventy-five cents? Fifty
cents? We are after the exact figures as near as maybe. What does it
cost for drives and excursions, and their spice of refreshment?"

"Say thirty dollars a year."

"Thirty dollars, then, we will call it. And here let us close, in
order to review the ground over which we have been travelling. All
those various expenses, not one of which is for things essential to
health, comfort, or happiness, but rather for their destruction,
amount to the annual sum of four hundred and two dollars sixty
cents,--you can go over the figures for yourself. Add to this three
hundred and eighty-four dollars, the cost of boarding and clothing,
and you swell the aggregate to nearly eight hundred dollars; and
your salary is but six hundred!"

A long silence followed.

"I am amazed, confounded!" said Hoffman, resting his head between
his hands, as he leaned on the table at which they were sitting.
"And not only amazed and confounded," he went on, "but humiliated,
ashamed! Was I a blind fool that I did not see it myself? Had I
forgotten my multiplication table?"

"You are like hundreds--nay, thousands," replied the friend, "to whom
a sixpence, a shilling, or even a dollar spent daily has a very
insignificant look; and who never stop to think that sixpence a day
amounts to over twenty dollars in a year; a shilling a day to over