"Yes, you may do so."
"What about stage and car hire? Do you ride or walk to and from business?"
"I ride, of course. You wouldn't expect me to walk nearly a mile four times a day."
"I never ride, except in bad weather. The walk gives me just the exercise I need. Every man, who is confined in a store or counting-room during business hours, should walk at least four miles a day. Taken in installments of one mile at a time, at good intervals, there is surely no hardship in this exercise. Four rides, at six-pence a ride and we have another item of twenty-five cents at day. You go down town nearly every evening?"
"Yes."
"And ride both ways?
"Yes."
"A shilling more, or thirty seven and a half cents daily for car and stage hire. Now for another little calculation. Three hundred days, at three shillings a day. There it is."
And Hamilton reached a slip of paper to his friend.
"Impossible!" The latter actually started to his feet. "A hundred and twelve dollars and fifty cents!"