Samuel Hopkins Adams

“ The beggar was there awaiting him.
“Well?” said he.
“Yes,” said E. Van Tenner.
“Two stamps?”
“And two cents over for a third. The magic worked.”
“What about the price of the lessons?”
“Lessons?”
“Haven’t you learned anything in the last twenty-four hours?”
E. Van Tenner considered. “I’ve learned that every time I spend a dollar I spend an extra quarter for vanity and a dime for timidity. I’ve learned how to go without things I don’t want, and to stop doing things I dislike myself for doing. I’ve learned the difference between parsimony and thrift.” ”

“ At first he thought it a misprint; it must be thirty cents; or possibly fifty. Consideration of the other vegetables dispelled that hope. They were on an equal scale. But—eighty cents for one green pepper! Was there, then, a fatal shortage in the green-pepper market? Or a crop failure in the rice or tomatoes whereof the stuffing was compounded?
“Cut it short! Be a sport! Buy a quart!”
shrieked the songsters, coyly adjusting their shoulder straps.
Enlightenment burst upon E. Van Tenner. The prices of the menu, suggesting the daily stock market report before the depression, became clear. ”

“ It was Welland, a near neighbor to his apartment. Welland was in the automobile business, from which he was reputed to draw from twenty-five to thirty thousand dollars a year in commissions. It was a surprise to E. Van Tenner to find so glossily prosperous a person, with a reputation as a free spender, in the day coach. He mentioned his surprise.
“War, my dear sir, war,” said Welland. “This nation is at war. I haven’t ridden in a parlor car since last summer.” ”

“ Men in every other line of necessary business are up against the same thing. So I’m doing my part to relieve the situation by riding in a light day coach, which seats a hundred or so passengers instead of a heavy Pullman, which seats maybe forty.”
E. Van Tenner glowed inwardly with self-satisfaction in that he had taken the unaccustomed and plebeian coach. He felt sure that the beggar’s purse would warmly approve of Welland, When that gentlemen, on his suggestion, moved forward to share his seat he anticipated a pleasanter journey than he would have enjoyed in the parlor car. ”

“ They’re getting men’s pay; have been for months. I saw the advertisements in the papers, offering it. No, sir! It’s because the railroad can’t find men enough. Yet back in the parlor car there’s a husky roust-about picking up towels and flicking dust off chair backs for tips, while those women hustle iron. He gets none of my money!”
The trip to New York was exceptionally brief, E. Van Tenner thought. At the terminus two Red-Caps swooped upon Welland and himself, only to be repelled in disorder. ”

“ Ingenuity, doubtless instigated by the beggar’s purse, is entitled to half credit. E. Van Tenner took the elevator—free—to his room and hung his hat and coat—gratis—in the clothes press. The room, he noted with satisfaction, was precisely the same as the five-dollar variety except that it was a few floors higher. He entered one dollar saved on room, ten cents each on washroom and coat check; and descending passed, unarmored but unscathed, the gantlet of the disarmed horseleech’s great-granddaughters. Already his total was two dollars and eighty cents. Good progress toward one stamp! ”

“ It calls for but one condition: That you keep all your money—bills and change—in it and spend only from it. If this is faithfully done, within twenty-four hours you will have saved enough to buy one—no, two stamps; which at the present price will come to eight dollars and twenty-eight cents.”
To Van Tenner’s skeptical eye the purse placed in his hand seemed an ordinary-enough affair—a cheap, flattish wallet, without distinguishing mark until he opened it and found, set into the flap, a celluloid tablet flanked by a small pencil. ”

“ He had left the lights on, thereby wasting coal for the hotel—upon which he had already saved a dollar and fifty-five cents.
“You are certainly some little economist!” he murmured to the occupant of his pocket as he returned and left the room in darkness.
At the theater a ducal personage behind a grille negligently informed him that there was nothing available in the orchestra before a week from Wednesday; but an undistinguished individual in the lobby—who may or may not have been there for that very purpose—mentioned that the Bilbosh Agency had some good seats. Thither went E. Van Tenner. ”

“ Ordinarily a pacifist in all personal relations E. Van Tenner would, unsupported by ulterior influences, have meekly obeyed rather than risk a verbal or possibly physical encounter. But magic is magic and will carry him whom it upholds by its might through the imminent deadly breach even to the cabby’s mouth. Something tingled upward from the hand that held the beggar’s purse ”

“ In the washroom he was beset by a human bluebottle who buzzed round him with a futile and superfluous whisk broom, despite his protests, and all but blocked his way when he sought an egress without paying for it in the form of a tip. ”

“ The fewer heavy parlor cars the less demand on coal and rolling stock. Here I am, unable to get my normal supply of automobiles from the factory, because the railroads can’t handle them. And, mind you, they’re a necessity. They relieve the strain of suburban railway traffic. ”

“ Station porter............................................$0.15 Parlor car...................................................55 Pullman porter...............................................25 Red-Cap......................................................15 Cable car vs. ”