PAGE 14
After A Shadow
by
“But would you cut off everything?” objected Hoffman. “Is a man to have no recreations, no amusements?”
“That is another question,” coolly answered Hamilton. “Our present business is to ascertain what has become of the two hundred and sixteen dollars which remained of your salary after boarding and clothing bills were paid. That is a handsome gold chain. What did it cost?”
“Eighteen dollars.”
“Bought lately?”
“Within six months.”
“So much more accounted for. Is that a diamond pin?”
Hoffman colored a little as he answered,–
“Not a very costly one. Merely a scarf-pin, as you. see. Small, though brilliant. Always worth what I paid for it.”
“Cost twenty-five or thirty dollars?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Shall I put that down as one of the year expenses?”
“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!”
“If you spend three shillings a day, you will spend that sum in a year. Figures are inexorable.”
Hoffman sat down again in troubled surprise, saying,
“Have you got to the end?”
“Not yet,” replied his companion.
“Very well. Go on.”
“I often notice you with candies, or other confections; and you are, sometimes, quite free in sharing them with your friends. Burnt almonds, sugar almonds, Jim Crow’s candied fruits, macaroons, etc. These are not to be had for nothing; and besides their cost they are a positive injury to the stomach. You, of course, know to what extent you indulge this weakness of appetite. Shall we say that it costs an average of ten cents a day?”
“Add fruit, in and out of season, and call it fifteen cents,” replied Hoffman.
“Very well. For three hundred days this will give another large sum–forty-five dollars?”
“Anything more?” said Hoffman in a subdued, helpless kind of way, like one lying prostrate from a sudden blow.
“I’ve seen you driving out occasionally; sometimes on Sunday. And, by the way, I think you generally take an excursion on Sunday. over to Staten Island, or to Hoboken, or up the river, or–but no matter where; you go about and spend money on the Sabbath day. How much does all this cost? A dollar a week? Seventy-five cents? Fifty cents? We are after the exact figures as near as maybe. What does it cost for drives and excursions, and their spice of refreshment?”
“Say thirty dollars a year.”
“Thirty dollars, then, we will call it. And here let us close, in order to review the ground over which we have been travelling. All those various expenses, not one of which is for things essential to health, comfort, or happiness, but rather for their destruction, amount to the annual sum of four hundred and two dollars sixty cents,–you can go over the figures for yourself. Add to this three hundred and eighty-four dollars, the cost of boarding and clothing, and you swell the aggregate to nearly eight hundred dollars; and your salary is but six hundred!”
A long silence followed.
“I am amazed, confounded!” said Hoffman, resting his head between his hands, as he leaned on the table at which they were sitting. “And not only amazed and confounded,” he went on, “but humiliated, ashamed! Was I a blind fool that I did not see it myself? Had I forgotten my multiplication table?”