“Nothing?  Then you don’t pay your shot, but sponge upon your neighbours.”

“Never!  I drink water, which costs nothing.  Drunken days have all their to-morrows, as the old proverb says.  I spare myself sore heads and shaky hands, and save my pennies.  Drinking water neither makes a man sick nor in debt, nor his wife a widow.  And that, let me tell you, makes a considerable difference in our out-go.  It may amount to about half-a-crown a week, or seven pounds a year.  That seven pounds will clothe myself and children, while you are out at elbows and your children go barefoot.”

“Come, come, that’s going too far.  I don’t drink at that rate.  I may take an odd half-pint now and then; but half-a-crown a week!  Pooh! pooh!”

“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.”

“Why, Jack, if you had your rights to-morrow, would they put your money back into your pocket after you had spent it?—­would your rights give your children shoes and stockings when you had chosen to waste on beer what would have bought them?  Would your rights make you or your wife, thriftier, or your hearthstone cleaner?  Would rights wash your children’s faces, and mend the holes in your clothes?  No, no, friend!  Give us our rights by all means, but rights are not habits, and it’s habits we want—­good habits.  With these we can be free men and independent men now, if we but determine to be so.  Good night, Jack, and mind my secret,—­it’s nothing but taking care of the pennies, and the pounds will take care of themselves.”