"How I got more money than my neighbours? Well, I wasn't born with it."
This was distinctly encouraging. Neither was Peter.
"No two men, I suppose, make money in the same way," went on the man who had, "but there are three or four things to be observed by all of them. In the first place one must be very hard-working."
"Yes," said Peter.
"And one must never lose sight of the object worked for. Not"—as if he had followed the boy's inward drop of dismay—"that a man should think of nothing but getting money. On the contrary, I consider it very essential for a man to have some escape from his business, some change of pasture to run his mind in. He comes fresher to his work so. What I mean is that when he works he must make every stroke count toward the end he has in view. Do you understand?"
"I think so." The House and the Shining Walls were safe, at any rate.
"And then," Mr. Dassonville checked off the points on his fingers, "he must always save something from his income, no matter how small it is."
"I try to do that," confessed Peter, "but what with Ellen's back being bad, and the interest on the mortgage, it's not so easy."
"Is there a mortgage? I am sorry for that, for the next thing I was going to say is that he must never go into debt, never on any account."
"My father was sick; it was an accident," Peter protested loyally.