e can have another customer."

"I never borrow."

"Indeed! Then you've had a legacy."

"No, and never expect to have one. All my relations are poor."

"Then unravel the mystery. Say where the hundred dollars came from."

"The answer is easy. I saved it from my salary."

"What?"

"I saved it during the last six months for just this purpose, and
now I am to have two weeks of pleasure and profit combined."

"Impossible!"

"I have given you the fact."

"What is your salary, pray?"

"Six hundred a year."

"So I thought. But you don't mean to say that in six months you have
saved one hundred dollars out of three hundred?"

"Yes; that is just what I mean to say."

"Preposterous. I get six hundred, and am in debt."

"No wonder."

"Why no wonder?"

"If a man spends more than he receives, he will fall in debt."

"Of course he will. But on a salary of six hundred, how is it
possible for a man to keep out of debt?"

"By spending less than he receives."

"That is easily said."

"And as easily done. All that is wanted is prudent forethought,
integrity of purpose, and self-denial. He must take care of the
pennies, and the pounds will take care of themselves."

"Trite and obsolete."

"True if trite; and never obsolete. It is as good doctrine to-day as
it was in poor Richard's time. Of that I can bear witness."

"I could never be a miser or a skinflint."

"Nor I. But I can refuse to waste my money in unconsidered trifles,
and so keep it for more important things; for a trip to Niagara and
the White Mountains, for instance."

The two young men who thus talked were clerks, each receiving the
salary already mentioned--six hundred dollars. One of them, named
Hamilton, understood the use of money; the other, named Hoffman,
practised the abuse of this important article. The consequence was,
that while Hamilton had a hundred dollars saved for a trip during
his summer vacation, Hoffman was in debt for more than two or three
times that amount.

The incredulous surprise expressed by Hoffman was sincere. He could
not understand the strange fact which had been announced. For an
instant it crossed his mind that Hamilton might only have advanced
his seeming impossible economy as a cover to dishonest practices.
But he pushed the thought away as wrong.

"Not much room for waste of money on a salary of six hundred a
year," answered Hoffman.

"There is always room for waste," said Hamilton. "A leak is a leak,
be i