One day soon after this calculation master and man were hauling stones for a new stove.  On the homeward way they stopped at an inn, for they had a long and hilly road.  Since the master was not so niggardly as to order the poorest wine when the servant was with him, and only a halfpence worth of bread for the two, Uli became talkative as they proceeded.  “Listen, master,” said Uli, “I have been thinking that the pastor who gave you your instruction wasn’t altogether a fool; but he didn’t know anything about what pay a farmer lad gets and what he needs; I suppose he thought it was about as much as a vicar’s pay.  But you ought to know better, and that saving and getting rich are no go.  I’ve spent many a day in figuring, till I was like to burst the top of my head off; but I always got the same result:  nothing comes of nothing, and zero from zero is zero.”

“Why, how did you figure?” asked the master.

Uli went through the whole account again for him, and when he was done he asked the master mockingly, “Now, what do you say to that?  Isn’t it so?”

The master said, “By your account, to be sure; but there’s a very different way of reckoning, my lad.  Here now, I’ll figure it up for you my way; I wonder what you’ll say to it.”

“I won’t change much what you put down for clothes.  It’s possible that if you want to keep yourself in good condition, and in particular to have shirts that will save washing, and to look as a self-respecting lad likes to look on Sundays and work-days, you’ll need even more at first.  But for tobacco you’ve put down two crowns, and that’s too much.  A man that has to go into the stable and on the barn-floor ought not to smoke all day, not till after working hours.  You don’t need to smoke to offset your hunger on my place, and if you could get out of the habit altogether it would help you a lot.  When a man doesn’t smoke he always increases his wages.

“The other ten crowns that you put down for amusements of all kinds I’ll strike out, every one.  Yes, open your mouth and look at me like a stork at a new roof.  If you want to cure yourself and come to something, you’ve got to make some decent resolution at the outset—­a resolution not to squander a single penny of your pay in any way.  If you resolve simply to go gallivanting a little less often, to spend a little less than before, that’s just throwing your money to the winds.  Once in the tavern, you’re no longer master of yourself; the old companionship, the old habit will carry you along, and you’ll spend two or three weeks’ pay again.  Then the after-thirst will come and you’ll have to improve other evenings, and more and more you’ll lose all belief that you could ever help yourself up, you’ll become slacker every day, and you’ll despair of yourself more and more.  Besides, it’s not so dreadful as the face you makeup.  See how many people never take a glass the year round, or go into a tavern.  It’s not only poor day-laborers, who have all they can do to keep off the parish, but some of them are well-to-do, even rich people, who’ve made it a habit never to spend anything uselessly, and they are not only contented but can much less understand how a reasonable man can enjoy idling than you are willing to understand me when I say a man can live without idling.”