r
man gets from spending a crown. If I hadn't begun that way I'd never
have come to anything. A poor lad doesn't know enough to stop at the
right time when once he begins; when he's thrown away one penny it pulls
a dozen along after it. But you mustn't think I'm a miserable miser.
Many a man has gone away empty-handed from the big farm-houses and has
got what he needed from me. I didn't forget who has blessed my work and
will soon demand an account from me.' At this I looked the little man up
and down with great respect; nobody could have told what was in him from
his looks. Before we separated I wanted to buy him a bottle of wine for
his good advice. But he refused; he didn't need anything, and whether he
squandered my money or his would come to the same thing on that future
account. Since then I've never seen him; probably he's gone to his
account by now, and if nobody had a worse one than he many a man would
be better off.

"So this is my opinion: every single farthing of your pay that you spend
for such useless things is ill spent. Stay at home, and you'll save not
merely ten crowns, but a lot besides. All the servants complain how many
shoes and clothes they need, when they have to be out in wind and
weather; but do you know how most of their clothes are spoiled? By
running around at night in all kinds of weather, through thick and thin,
and with all that goes on then. If you wear your clothes twenty-four
hours, you evidently use 'em up more than if it was only fourteen. You
don't go calling in wooden shoes, and do you burst out more shoe-nails
by day, or by night when you can't see the stones, the holes, or the
ditches? And tell me, how do your Sunday clothes look after you've
stumbled around in them drunk, pulled each other about, and rolled in
the mud? How many a Sunday jacket has been torn to pieces, the trousers
ruined, the hat lost!

"Many a man would surely need less for his clothes if he stayed at home;
I say nothing about the girls. And think, Uli, if you need ten crowns
now for such useless habits, in ten years you'll need twenty and in
twenty forty, if you have them; for a habit like that doesn't stand
still it grows. And doesn't that lead straight as a string to your old
ways?

"Finally, Uli, you get not only thirty crowns, but also many a penny in
the way of tips when a cow or a horse is sold, and the like. Use those
when you must have an outing and can't give up the tavern. Out of that
money you c