On account of our great wealth, Mr. Perkins had decided to take a tourist sleeping-car for the trip, rather than sit up in the seats of the common cars all night.
“Sleepin’ cars is a genuine luxury, Sam,” he said, “an’ only fit for the very rich, who’ve got so much money they won’t miss it, or the very poor, who’ve got so little there’s no use savin’ it. I guess we can afford the treat and the bunks in this ’ere tourist car is jest as big as the ones in the high-priced coaches ahead. So as soon as we get clear of ’Frisco, let’s go to bed.”
“But it isn’t dark yet, Uncle,” I protested. “It won’t be bedtime for hours.”
“Sam,” replied the old man, earnestly, “do you mean to say you’re goin’ to pay for a bed and let it lay idle? That’s what I call rank extravagance! I’ve seen it done, on my travels, o’ course. I’ve known a man to pay three dollars for a bed, an’ then set up half the night in the smokin’ cars before he turns in. But do you s’pose the railroad company pays him back half the money? Never. They just laughs at him and keeps the whole three dollars! To pay for a thing, and use it, ain’t extravagance; but to buy a bed, and then set up half the night is. Why, it’s like payin’ for a table-day-haughty dinner an’ then skippin’ half the courses! Would a sensible man do that?”
“Not if he’s hungry, Uncle,” said I, laughing at this philosophy.
“If he ain’t hungry, he buys a sandwich, an’ not a table-day-haughty,” cried Uncle Naboth, triumphantly.
Nevertheless, being fully conscious of my newly acquired wealth, I recklessly sat up until bedtime, while my thrifty Uncle occupied his “bunk” and snored peacefully. The journey was accomplished in safety, and from Boston we took the little railway to the seaport town of Batteraft.
During the last hours of the trip Uncle Naboth had become very thoughtful, and I frequently noticed him making laborious memoranda with his pencil on the backs of envelopes and scraps of paper which he took from his wallet. Finally I asked:
“I’m jest jotting down the things I mean to say to that old female shark at Batteraft,” was the reply. “I tell you, Sam, she’s goin’ to have the talkin’-to of her life, when I get at her; and she’ll deserve every word of it. I’ll let you pay her first, so’s the money account will be square; an’ then I’ll try to square the moral account.”