myself, "I wont touch that money, but I'll put more to it from time to time, and when it amounts to a hundred, I'll do something with it-put it in the bank, or invest it in a building society, or something of that sort." But, somehow, the money didn't grow as I expected. You see I always had the key of that drawer in my pocket; and at any time, if I ran a little short through being rather free with my mates or going upon the spree, I had nothing to do but to go to the drawer and help myself. I hesitated over it sometimes, but never for long; the drawer was SO handy, and I used to say to myself, "If I take a sovereign it wont reduce the money much, and I can put it back again next week." But it generally happened when next week came that it wasn't convenient to put the money back. And so I went on going to the drawer for sovereigns and half-sovereigns, until the bit of money dwindled down so low that it wasn't worth keeping. It's the same with drink. If you make up your mind that you wont taste a drop for a week, and stick to it, you are all right; but only be persuaded to make a beginning-to take one glass, just one, and you take another and another, and then it's all wrong. It's the the same, too, I dare say, with swindling and robbing your master once make a beginning, and on you go, like rolling down One-Tree-Hill on Whit Monday, the further you go, the faster you go.

Susan used to say to me, "George, how's the money getting on?" And she used to say it in a sly sarcastic sort of way, meaning that I was spending it, and that it was going very fast. I knew it was, but I didn't like to acknowledge it, and always said: "Oh! it's all right in the drawer, there, what's of it." "Well, George," she would say, you put away ten pounds about a month ago; and as Christmas is coming on, it will enable us to buy all we require, and give a little party to our friends." "Yes," "I would say, "but you know, my dear, that I have paid So-and-so, and So-and-so ;" and then I'd name certain bills, and the subscription to

66

my lodge-for I am an Odd Fellow-and add it up and subtract it from the ten, and Susan, not being good at figures, would be quite puzzled and give the sum up in despair.

the more.

But she found me out more than once. One day, when I came home to dinner, she says to me, "George," she says, "you left the key of the drawer on the mantleshelf this morning." She didn't look at me, but went on carving the boiled rabbit. My wife is odd that way, and not like generality of women. Nagging is not one of her faults. She doesn't say much, but she thinks So, when she told me about the key in that quiet way, I knew she had been to the drawer and counted the money. That's where I don't hold with Bluebeard. He might have tried his wife with anything but a secret; it is downright unreasonable to expect a woman not to be curious. I merely said "Oh!" in an indifferent kind of way; but I am sure my looks convicted me. However, Susan did not make any remark about the money being nearly all gone; but, by-and-by, when she was helping me to a suety dumpling, she says in her usual demure way, "Don't you think, George, it would be a good thing to put a little money away in a savings bank?" "Well," I says, "it wouldn't be a bad thing, Susan." "No," she says, "I'm sure it wouldn't, and if I was you I would make a beginning." Well," I says, "I would, if I knew how to go about it." "There's no difficulty about that," Susan says; "you've only to go to Welbeck-street, and put a little in, and they'll give you a book, and there you are." "Very well, Susan," I says, "I'll take your advice, and go to Welbeck-street to-morrow."

I was as good as my word; and next day, at the dinner-hour, I walked up to Welbeck-street to put in three pounds ten, which was all that was left of the fifteen. But, lo and behold! when I got to the bank it was shut; and for the moment I thought it had broke, or the manager bolted with the funds, or something, but on looking about I noticed a brass plate on the wall

with information about the bank-hours, and from that I learned that the bank was only open three days a week, from ten to two in the morning, and from six to eight in the evening. I had come on the wrong day. I was a good bit vexed to have all my trouble for my pains, but Susan, when I told her, took it quite quiet, and says, "Never mind, George, you can go again on Saturday when the Bank is open." Well, I fully resolved to go, and on Saturday morning I took the money with me, intending to walk over to the bank after my work. However, just as I was leaving the shop at six o'clock, who should I meet but an old mate of mine, that I hadn't seen for years. Nothing would do for Dave but I must go and have a glass with him. Well, you know, you can't refuse to drink with a mate, especially when he's been away in Birmingham for ever so long, and got a holiday on purpose to come up and see his friends. So in we goes to the Yorkshire Grey, and has a glass of rum-and-water each, and you know how the time slips away when old friends meet as have been long parted. Dave had so much to tell me about Birmingham gunbarrels, and I had so much to tell Dave about Clerkenwell watch-springs, and one thing followed another, including glasses of rum-and-water, that it was a quarter to eight in no time. It was no use; I couldn't get to Welbeck-street in a quarter of an hour unless I took a cab, and it didn't seem natural like to take a cab to go to a savings bank with three pounds ten: so I stopped with Dave, and had another glass.

an

When I went home and told Susan, she didn't say angry word, but just remarked that I was very unlucky. You don't know how aggravating Susan is in that way. I'd rather have tongue-pie a good deal, than that sit-andsay-nothing, but think-the-more way of hers. It's more aggravating than saying the thing right out, for you can't tell what an awful character a quiet woman thinks you are. For my part, I'd rather have teacups. However, I was resolved to show Susan that I was in earnest, and on the following Tuesday I got to the bank

in good time. I didn't find it such an easy matter though, to put my money away, even now when I was there with it in my hand. There was such a lot of people in the bank that there was no getting near the counter for full a quarter of an hour; and when at last I did get to it, the clerks didn't seem inclined to take any notice of me. Two or three times I said to one of them that I wanted to put in three pound ten, but he paid no attention, and always turned to somebody else. An old woman with half-a-crown cut me out first, and then I was elbowed aside by a charity boy with a shilling all in coppers. They were regular customers, and used to the banking business, I suppose, and I wasn't. However, I got it in at last and received my book, and I do assure you I felt a load taken off my mind. When I showed the book to Susan, she said, "That's right, George, and I hope you'll get on with it." I fully intended to do so then; but it's easy to intend and not so easy to carry your intendings out. It's like sitting over a fire on a winter's night, and saying, "I'll get up early to-morrow morning and do overtime ;' but when the morning comes, and you peep out between the clothes and see the frost upon the windows, it's very easy to find an excuse for lying a little longer.

The evening song and the morning song don't often agree. So it was with my saving. I had always a pretty lively recollection of the trouble it was to walk all the way to Welbeck-street after my day's work, and then to have to push my way through a crowd of old women, and wait my turn at the counter. It's not worth doing for a few shillings, I used to say to myself; I'll wait until there's more of it, then put it in in a lump. So I put the shillings away in the drawer until such time as they should grow to be pounds; but owing to the key being always handy they didn't; and what with club-nights and sprees now and then, it never came to be enough to be worth taking down to Welbeck-street. When Christmas time came, all I had in the bank was the three pounds ten I first put in. However, that was

something, and as I was rather short just then, it would come in handy to get the Christmas extras. Three days before Christmas I went down to the bank to draw the money out, promising Susan to come straight home with it. You may judge how mad I was, when the clerk told me that I couldn't draw the money out without giving a week's notice. Here was a pretty go; Susan at home waiting for the money to get in the tea and sugar, the plums and currants, and what not, and the cash not to be got until after Christmas. "This sort of saving wont suit me," says I to myself; "there's too much ceremony about it." I had to borrow the money from one of my mates to get the Christmas dinner, and at the end of the week I drew my money out of Welbeck-street, and paid him back; and that was the end of my account at that savings bank.

Next year, Susan belonged to a pudding-club at the grocer's, and I belonged to a goose-club at the "Yorkshire Grey." We began to pay in sixpence a week very shortly after Midsummer; and, a few days before Christmas, Susan brought home a parcel of groceries, and I got a goose, and a bottle of gin, and a bottle of rum. We didn't miss the money paid every week in sixpences, and when the things came home they seemed like a gift. I said to Susan that I thought this was better than putting money in the savings' bank, where there was so much ceremony, and Susan thought so too. But when Susan's brother, John, who is a cashier at a large linendraper's, came to dinner on Christmas day, and we told him how we had been saving, he burst out a-laughing. "What are you laughing at?" I says. "What am I laughing at?" he says, almost choking himself with a mouthful of goose-"why at you." "What for?" I says. "For being so jolly green," he says. "Jolly green!" I says; "is it jolly green to lay by money for a rainy day?-leastways, for Christmas day, when a family requires extras?" “ Fiddlesticks !” John says. "Let me ask you a question, George." "Twenty," I says; "go ahead, John." "Well," he