in troubled surprise, saying,

"Have you got to the end?"

"Not yet," replied his companion.

"Very well. Go on."

"I often notice you with candies, or other confections; and you are,
sometimes, quite free in sharing them with your friends. Burnt
almonds, sugar almonds, Jim Crow's candied fruits, macaroons, etc.
These are not to be had for nothing; and besides their cost they are
a positive injury to the stomach. You, of course, know to what
extent you indulge this weakness of appetite. Shall we say that it
costs an average of ten cents a day?"

"Add fruit, in and out of season, and call it fifteen cents,"
replied Hoffman.

"Very well. For three hundred days this will give another large
sum--forty-five dollars?"

"Anything more?" said Hoffman in a subdued, helpless kind of way,
like one lying prostrate from a sudden blow.

"I've seen you driving out occasionally; sometimes on Sunday. And,
by the way, I think you generally take an excursion on Sunday, over
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 twent