"I mean money," said Ned. "Money's called capital, you know, when it's put into business. We put capital into this office, and you'd have to, if we took you into partnership."
"Oh, that's it," said Charlie, musingly. "Well, I suppose I could; we live on the Bowl System at our house; but I should hardly like to take it."
"The Bowl System? What's that?" said Ned. "Soup, or bread-and-milk, for every meal?"
"No; not that at all," said Charlie. "You see, on the highest shelf in our pantry there's a two-quart bowl, with a blue-and-gold rim around it. Whenever any member of the family gets any money, he puts it into that bowl; and whenever any of us want any money, we take it out of that bowl. I've seen the bowl full of money, and I've seen it when it had only five cents in it. The fullest I ever saw it was just before sister Edith was married. For a long time they all kept putting in as much as they could, and hardly took out anything at all, till the bowl got so full that the money slid off from the top. Then they took it all out, and went down town and bought her wedding things. And oh, you ought to have seen them! Stacks and stacks of clothes that I don't even know the names of."
"Then I suppose you could help yourself to all the capital you want, out of the bowl?" said Ned.
"Yes, I could," said Charlie; "but I shouldn't like to; for I am the only one of the family that never puts anything into it. Perhaps other people don't know it by that name, but brother George calls it living on the Bowl System."
"Why don't you put the money into the bank?" said Phaeton.
"Father had a lot of money in a bank once," said Charley, "but the bank broke, and he said he'd never put in any more."
"I wish we lived on the Bowl System at our house," said Monkey Roe. "It wouldn't be many days before I'd have a velocipede and a double-barrelled pistol."