"Well, suppose we go down into the matter of expenditures, item by item, and make some use of the common rules of arithmetic as we go along. Your salary, to start with, is six hundred dollars, and you play the same as I do for boarding and washing, that is, four and a half dollars per week, which gives the sum of two hundred and thirty-four dollars a year. What do your clothes cost?" "A hundred and fifty dollars will cover everything!" "Then you have two hundred and sixteen dollars left. What becomes of that large sum?" Hoffman dropped his eyes and went to thinking. Yes, what had become of these two hundred and sixteen dollars? Here was the whole thing in a nutshell. "Cigars," said Hamilton. "How many do you use in a day?" "Not over three. But these are a part of considered expenses. I am not going to do without cigars." "I am only getting down to the items," answered the friend. "We must find out where the money goes. Three cigars a day, and, on an average, one to a friend, which makes four." "Very well, say four." "At six cents apiece." Hamilton took a slip of paper and made a few figures. "Four cigars a day at six cents each, cost twenty-four cents. Three hundred and sixty-five by twenty-four gives eighty-seven dollars and sixty cents, as the cost of your cigars for a year." "O, no! That is impossible," returned Hoffman, quickly. "There is the calculation. Look at it for yourself," replied Hamilton, offering the slip of paper. "True as I live!" ejaculated the other, in unfeigned surprise. "I never dreamed of such a thing. Eighty-seven dollars. That will never do in the world. I must cut this down." "A simple matter of figures. I wonder you had not thought of counting the cost. Now I do not smoke at all. It is a bad habit, that injures the health, and makes us disagreeable to our friends, to say nothing of the expense. So you see how natural the result, that at the end of the year I should have eighty-seven dollars in band, while you had puffed away an equal sum in smoke. So much for the cigar account. I think you take a game of billiards now and