While all of this is true it only represents extreme cases, therefore it should not be construed that this chapter is launched against the habit of saving.  Rather, its purpose is to suggest the thought of not “over-saving” at the expense of personal welfare.  Our best plan would be to save in reason, not forgetting that life is here to enjoy as we go along.  Then, too, we must have a credit rating among our fellow mortals, just the same as a business person must have credit rating among financial institutions.

[Illustration:  Squaring Things With Sister—­From “The Habit of Happiness"]

Credit in business is worth more than money because it allows for expansion whereas money in the bank is only good as far as it goes.  Many a merchant who bought and sold for cash all his life found when he came to enlarge his business that one thing was lacking—­credit.  The fact that he had always paid cash threw a doubt upon his financial condition when he proposed to borrow.  He had neglected to build up a credit as he went along.  The business world only knew him as a man who paid cash and exacted cash.  Taken at his fullest inventory he had “scalped” a living out of the world for which he had done but little to make happier or better.  One calamity might easily scuttle his prospects forever—­for instance, a fire, or a bank failure.  And without credit it would be difficult to start over again.

By all means we must save something for the “rainy day” as we go along—­and our savings can be made up of other things than actual cash in bank.  One item of our savings is the habit of keeping up our appearances.  Living beyond our means does not incorporate the thought that, in order to save every possible cent, we should become slipshod and shabby.  Carelessness in dress takes away from our rating as nothing else will for it has to do with first impressions of those with whom we come in contact.  Gentility pays dividends of the highest order, being, as it is, a badge of character.  Neatness bespeaks character, and it is just as cheap in dollars and cents to keep ourselves respectably clothed as to indulge in shoddy apparel under the delusion that we have saved money on the purchase price.  Good clothing, costing more at the start, lasts long and looks well as long as it lasts.  Shoddy apparel never is anything else but shoddy, and well might it proclaim the shoddy man.

When we throw away our opportunity to present a genteel appearance, just for the sake of the bank roll, we doom ourselves to defeat in the pursuit of knowledge.  We cannot get all we want to know by the mere reading of books.  We must mingle with people; we must interchange thought that we may crystallize what we know into practical knowledge so it can be made into tools to work with.  While a man of brains is welcome everywhere the matter of his appearance has a lot to do with how he is received and with whom he may fraternize.