"Why, to quit smoking and save the money."
"Did I tell you that?" he asked nervously, as he fumbled in his breast-pocket.
"Certainly. You told me about little Ernest and—why, what are you doing?" He had pulled a case from his pocket and was biting off a cigar. "I thought you—"
"Didn't smoke, eh? Well, I didn't till yesterday, when that blasted savings bank suspended."
I resumed smoking Friday. In fact, Pennypacker and I had a regular smoke-talk. I've decided that if ever I save money it will not be by small personal economies. I've made up my mind that, as a general rule, economy is only a species of self-deception. The man who walks two or three miles to save car-fare gets the exercise as a bonus, but what sense is there in using postal cards to save postage and then sending telegrams to hurry up the answer? There was a fellow in college whose mania was to save shoestrings. He thought they ought to wear as long as the shoes and sooner than indulge in the lavish expenditure of a nickel for a new pair, he'd cover his feet all over with knots and blacken up twine with ink. Yet when this chap wanted a cuspidor, nothing but an $18 majolica affair would satisfy him.
The man who makes his money by slow savings seldom knows when he's got enough, and even if he finds out he never knows how to let down the bars so that he can enjoy it. Habit is a stern taskmaster and I have no wish to degenerate into a miser. There is, of course, a mean between a spendthrift and a miser, but the difficulty is in determining where it is located.
If I seem prolix on this subject it is because I find that my $50 salary and that of the late Manager Welch combined, seem to go no farther than did the eight per with which I started my tumultuous business career. If a man has one dollar a week clear he is seldom likely to have very expensive tastes, but give him a few hundred a year more than demanded for the absolute necessities of life and he forthwith becomes a plutocrat in his longings. This may be back-handed philosophy, but it's pretty straight goods so far as the majority of the rising generation are concerned. But I am infringing, dear father, on your chosen prerogative. Let me change the subject.
Why is it that life on the road as a drummer seems to mark a man for life? Every time I meet a commercial traveller in a hotel he invariably fires at me, "What line are you in?" I have changed my tailor three times and have repeatedly altered my style of dress, but still they seem to recognize me as one of them. Can I never shake off the ear-marks of the road? I am thinking seriously of taking a course with a professor of deportment, for perhaps it is my manner. I am more inclined to think it due to daily association with Milligan.