Men who lived beyond their means might be officers by virtue of their commissions, but they were not gentlemen. The habit of being constantly in debt, the general held, made men grow callous to the proper feelings of a gentleman. It was not enough that an officer should be able to fight; that, any bulldog could do. But did he hold his word inviolate? Did he pay his debts? He should be as ready to utter his valiant ‘No,’ or ‘I can’t afford it,’ to the invitations of pleasure and self-enjoyment, as to mount a breach amidst belching fire and the iron hail of machine-guns. The Duke of Wellington kept an accurate detailed account of all the moneys received and expended by him. ‘I make a point,’ said he, ‘of paying my own bills, and I advise every one to do the same. Formerly, I used to trust a confidential servant to pay them; but I was cured of that folly by receiving one morning, to my great surprise, duns of a year or two’s standing. The fellow had speculated with my money and left my bills unpaid.’ Talking of debt, his remark was: ‘It makes a slave of a man. I have often known what it was to be in want of money, but I never got into debt.’ Washington was as particular as Wellington in matters of business detail, and he did not disdain to scrutinise the smallest outgoings of his household—determined as he was to live honestly within his means—even while holding the high office of President of the American Union. To provide for others and for our own comfort and independence in old age, is honourable, and greatly to be commended; but to hoard for mere wealth’s sake is the characteristic of the narrow-souled and the miserly. ‘We must carry money in the head, not in the heart;’ that is to say, we must not make an idol of it, but regard it as a useful agent. Some of the finest qualities of human nature are intimately related to the right use of money, such as generosity, honesty, justice, and self-sacrifice, as well as the practical virtues of economy and providence. On the other hand, there are their counterparts of avarice, fraud, injustice, and selfishness, as displayed by the inordinate lovers of gain; and the vices of thriftlessness, extravagance, and improvidence, on the part of those who misuse and abuse the means intrusted to them. ‘So that,’ as it has been well said, ‘a right measure and manner in getting, saving, spending, giving, taking, lending, borrowing, and bequeathing, would almost argue a perfect man.’ THE SIGNALMAN’S LOVE-STORY. IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAP. II.