“Yes, uncle, I think I have,” said Charles, smiling, as he sipped his coffee, at the old man’s simplicity. “The fellows who manage these affairs soon compel us to count the cost, for when I came down this morning, I found on the breakfast table this bill for nine hundred and fifty-four dollars.” “Nine hundred dollars, Charles! You don’t mean to say that your party last night cost that sum?” “I do, my dear sir, and considering that the bill includes every thing but the wines, I do not consider it an exorbitant one; however, the elegant colored gentleman who takes all this trouble for me does not charge me quite so much as he would if I employed him less frequently.” The old man looked round and sighed. The apartments were in sad disorder, for the servants, overcome by the fatigues of the previous day, had followed the example of their master, and stolen from the morning the sleep they had been denied at night. A bottle lay shivered in one corner of the supper room, the champaigne with which it had been filled soaking into the rich carpet—a piece of plum-cake had been crushed by some heedless foot into the snow-white rug which lay before the drawing-room fire—the sweeping draperies of one of the curtains was still dripping with something which bore a marvellous resemblance to melted ice cream, and the whole suite of apartments wore that air of desolation which usually characterizes a “banquet hall deserted.” “Do you calculate the destruction of furniture in counting the cost of your parties, Charles?” asked Mr. Waterton. “Oh no—that of course is expected; furniture, you know, becomes old-fashioned and requires to be renewed about every three years, and therefore one may as well have the use of it while it is new.” “You must have a vast addition to your fortune if you expect to pay for all these things.” “My dear sir,” replied the nephew, with a most benignant smile at his uncle’s superlative ignorance of his affairs, “my dear sir, you do not seem to know that, in the course of about three years, I shall be one of the richest men in New York.” “Do you sell on credit?” asked the old man, significantly. “Certainly; everybody does so now.” “Well, then, my boy, take an old man’s advice, and don’t count your chickens before they are hatched; don’t live on ten thousand a year when that sum exists only in your ledger. Call in your debts, and when your customers have _paid_, then tell me how _much_ you have _gained_.” “My dear uncle, you are quite obsolete in your notions. I wish I could induce you to enter with me into a new scheme; it would make your fortune.” “I am content with my present condition, Charles; my salary of eight hundred a year is quite sufficient for the wants of a bachelor, and leaves me a little for the wants of others; nor would I sacrifice my peace of mind and quiet of conscience for all the fortunes that will ever be made by speculation.”