managed, "I am quite warm," as in fact he
was, and a little flushed. He sat down provisionally on the edge of the
chair and looked at Mr. Dassonville.
"I came on business. I don't know if you will mind its being Sunday,
but I couldn't get away from the store on other days."
"Quite right, quite right." Mr. Dassonville had lost his place in the book
and laid it on his knee. "Private business? My dear, perhaps----"
"Oh, no--no," protested Peter handsomely. "I'd rather she stayed. It isn't.
At least ... I don't know if you will consider it private or not."
"Go on," urged Mr. Dassonville.
"I just came to ask you," Peter explained, "if you don't mind telling me,
how you got rich?"
"But bless you, young man," exclaimed Mr. Dassonville, "I'm not rich."
This for a beginning, was, on the face of it, disconcerting. Peter looked
about at the rows of books, at the thick, soft carpet and the
leather-covered furniture, and at the rings on Mrs. Dassonville's hand.
If Mr. Dassonville were not rich, how then--unless----
"I beg your pardon, sir, but I thought--that is, everybody says you are
the richest man in these parts."
"As to that, well, perhaps, I have a little more money than my
neighbours."
Peter breathed relief. The beautiful Mrs. Dassonville's rings were paid
for, then.
"But as to being rich, why, when you come to a really rich man all I've
got wouldn't be a pinch to him." Mr. Dassonville illustrated with his
own thumb and fingers how little that would be. "We don't have really
rich men in a place like Harmony," he concluded. "You have to go to
the city for that."
"You've got everything you want, haven't you?"
Mr. Dassonville looked over at his wife, and the smile bloomed again;
he smiled quietly to himself as he admitted it. "Yes, I've got everything
I want."
They were quiet, all of them, for a little while, with Peter turning his
hat over in his hands and Mr. Dassonville laying the tips of his fingers
together before him, resting his elbows on the arms of the chair.
"I wish," said Peter at last, "you would tell me how you did it."
"How I got more money than my neighbours? Well, I wasn't born with
it."
This was distinctly encouraging. Neither was Peter.
"No two men, I suppose, make money in the same way," went on the
man who had, "but there are three or four things to be observed by all
of them. In the first place one must be very hard-working."
"Yes," said Peter.
"And one must never lose sight of the object worked for. Not"--as if he
had followed the boy's inward drop of dismay--"that a man should
think of nothing but getting money. On the contrary, I consider it very
essential for a man to have some escape from his business, some
change of pasture to run his mind in. He comes fresher to his work so.
What I mean is that when he works he must make every stroke count
toward the end he has in view. Do you understand?"
"I think so." The House and the Shining Walls were safe, at any rate.
"And then," Mr. Dassonville checked off the points on his fingers, "he
must always save something from his income, no matter how small it
is."
"I try to do that," confessed Peter, "but what with Ellen's back being
bad, and the interest on the mortgage, it's not so easy."
"Is there a mortgage? I am sorry for that, for the next thing I was going
to say is that he must never go into debt, never on any account."
"My father was sick; it was an accident," Peter protested loyally.
"So! I think I remember. Well, it is unfortunate, but where there is a
debt the only thing is to reduce it as steadily as possible, and if this
mortgage teaches you the trick of saving it may not be such a bad thing
for you. But when a man works and saves for a long time without
getting any sensible benefit, he sometimes thinks that saving and
working are not worth while. You must never make that mistake."
"Oh, no," said Peter. It seemed to him that they were getting on very
well indeed.
"There is another thing I should like to say," Mr. Dassonville went on,
"but I am not sure I can put it plainly. It is that you must not try to be
too wise." He smiled a little to Peter's blankness. "I believe in Harmony
it is called looking on all sides of a thing, but there is always one side
of everything like the moon which is turned from us. You must just
start from where

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