"Well, then, how much did you spend on drink last Saturday night? Out with it."
"Let me see: I had a pint with Jones; I think I had another with Davis, who is just going to Australia; and then I went to the lodge."
"Well, how many glasses had you there?"
"How can I tell? I forget. But it's all stuff and nonsense, Bill!"
"Oh, you can't tell: you don't know what you spent? I believe you. But that's the way your pennies go, my lad."
"And that's all your secret?"
"Yes; take care of the penny—that's all. Because I save, I have, when you want. It's very simple, isn't it?"
"Simple, oh yes; but there's nothing in it."
"Yes! there's this in it,—that it has made you ask me the question, how I manage to keep my family so comfortably, and put money in the Penny Bank, while you, with the same wages, can barely make the ends meet. Money is independence, and money is made by putting pennies together. Besides, I work so hard for mine,—and so do you,—that I can't find it in my heart to waste a penny on drink, when I can put it beside a few other hard-earned pennies in the bank. It's something for a sore foot or a rainy day. There's that in it, Jack; and there's comfort also in the thought that, whatever may happen to me, I needn't beg nor go to the workhouse. The saving of the penny makes me feel a free man. The man always in debt, or without a penny beforehand, is little better than a slave."
"But if we had our rights, the poor would not be so hardly dealt with as they now are."