our, or so," said
Joseph, consulting his watch. "I got leave of absence to-day, and
intend to spend part of my holiday in introducing him to Captain Lee,
who has promised to get him a situation in the head office. You've no
idea what a fine hearty fellow he is," continued Tipps enthusiastically,
"so full of humour and good sense. But what have you been discussing?
Not accounts, surely! Why, mother, what's the use of boring your brains
with such things? Let me have 'em, I'll go over them for you. What
d'you want done? The additions checked, eh?"

On learning that it was not the accounts so much as the discrepancy
between the estimate and the actual expenditure that puzzled his mother,
Tipps seized her book, and, turning over the leaves, said, "Here, let me
see, I'll soon find it out--ah, well, rent yes; taxes, h'm; wine to Mrs
Natly, you put that, in your estimate, under the head of food, I
suppose?"

"N-no, I think not."

"Under physic, then?"

"No, not under that. I have no head for that."

"What! no head for physic? If you'd said you had no stomach for it I
could have understood you; but--well--what _did_ you put it under;
sundries, eh?"

"I'm afraid, Joseph, that I have not taken note of that in my extract--
your dear father used to call the thing he did with his cash-book at the
end of the year an extract--I think I've omitted that."

"Just so," said Tipps, jotting down with a pencil on the back of a
letter. "I'll soon account to you for the discrepancy. Here are six
bottles of wine to Mrs Natly, the railway porter's wife, at
three-and-six--one pound one--not provided for in your estimate. Any
more physic, I wonder? H'm, subscription for coals to the poor.
Half-a-guinea--no head for charities in your estimate, I suppose?"

"Of course," pleaded Mrs Tipps, "in making an estimate, I was thinking
only of my own expenses, you know--not of charities and such-like
things; but when poor people come, you know, what _is_ one to do?"

"We'll not discuss that just now, mother. Hallo! `ten guineas doctor's
fee!' Of course you have not that in the estimate, seeing that you did
not know Netta was going to be ill. What's this?--`five pounds for
twenty wax dolls--naked--(to be dressed by ---)'"

"Really, Joseph, the book is too private to be read aloud," said Mrs
Tipps, snatching it out of her son's hand. "These dolls were for a
bazaar in aid of the funds of a blind asylum, and I dressed them all
myself