e cost of living
in this and other countries--a subject, I need scarcely say, highly
interesting to the working classes. I have calculated a scale of living
for incomes of eighty, one hundred and sixty, two hundred, and two
hundred and forty pounds a year. I must confess that the income of
eighty pounds has somewhat baffled me, and the others are not so exact
as I could wish; for the price of washing varies largely in foreign
countries, and the different cokes, coals, and firewoods fluctuate
surprisingly. I will read my researches, and I hope you won't scruple to
point out to me any little errors that I may have committed either from
oversight or ignorance. I will begin, gentlemen, with the income of
eighty pounds a year."

Whereupon the old gentleman, with less compassion than he would have had
for brute beasts, delivered himself of all his tedious calculations. As
he occasionally gave nine versions of a single income, placing the
imaginary person in London, Paris, Bagdad, Spitzbergen, Bassorah,
Heligoland, the Scilly Islands, Brighton, Cincinnati, and
Nijni-Novgorod, with an appropriate outfit for each locality, it is no
wonder that his hearers look back on that evening as the most tiresome
they ever spent.

Long before Mr. Finsbury had reached Nijni-Novgorod with the income of
one hundred and sixty pounds, the company had dwindled and faded away to
a few old topers and the bored but affable Watts. There was a constant
stream of customers from the outer world, but so soon as they were
served they drank their liquor quickly and departed with the utmost
celerity for the next public-house.

By the time the young man with two hundred a year was vegetating in the
Scilly Islands, Mr. Watts was left alone with the economist; and that
imaginary person had scarce commenced life at Brighton before the last
of his pursuers desisted from the chase.

Mr. Finsbury slept soundly after the manifold fatigues of the day. He
rose late, and, after a good breakfast, ordered the bill. Then it was
that he made a discovery which has been made by many others, both before
and since: that it is one thing to order your bill, and another to
discharge it. The items were moderate and (what does not always follow)
the total small; but, after the most sedulous review of all his pockets,
one and nine pence halfpenny appeared to be the total of the old
gentleman's available assets. He asked to see Mr. Watts.

"Here is a bill on London for eight h