The young man scratched his head, and continued:
| Car-tickets | $1.25 |
| Tobacco | .40 |
| Soap | .15 |
| Shaving ditto | .19 |
| Gas | 2.40 |
| Pencils | .03 |
"Aha!" said V. Vivian, after a considerable interval; and penned triumphantly:
| Matches | .05 |
| Beads (Corinne) | .49 |
Followed a long pause.
On the opposite, or left-hand, page of the ledger there stood:
| Income | 50.00 |
| Receipts | 6.40 |
| ----- | |
| Total | 56.40 |
Vivian's dead father, though the absent-minded inventor of the turbine that would never quite work, had somehow contrived not to make away with every penny of his wife's Beirne inheritance. Very few unsuccessful inventors could say as much. And this fact accounted for the complicating term "Income," whose regular presence in the budget was certainly a trifle awkward for the despiser of property, aligning him out of hand with the wealthy classes; but to the individual was undoubtedly most comforting, since it set a man economically free forever. You never have to do anything for money, with fifty dollars a month. Receipts were, of course, moneys taken in for services rendered. If Vivian's sick insisted on paying him a little something for his trouble, he thought it moral not to restrain them. However, the sick's attitude was commonly the reverse of the above....
Ignoring "Receipts," as a highly uncertain quantity, the scheme of income and outgo commonly left a net monthly balance of about ten dollars for works of a philanthropic nature. From a strictly scientific point of view, the budget contained an unsoundness, in that it allowed nothing for depreciation of plant, so to say: the necessity for fresh supplies of a personal nature really was not duly faced in it. However, the doctor had so far eliminated all expenditures in that quarter, save only for a little half-soling matter week before last. He was confident that it would all work out very satisfactorily when occasion arose.
The trial balance to-night developed a shortage of $1.22. Before the budgeteer could precisely place it, his attention became diverted by something else, to return no more that evening. Having drawn a stray sheet of paper toward him to scribble on it "Milk for Miggs," he was caught and engrossed by other inscriptions on the sheet, noted down in the early forenoon. They ran: