I am glad that my ethical-cum-philosophical friend is not at my elbow just now, to suggest that I ought to be kind to Pugsley. Why, in the name of reason, am I to flatter and applaud this commercial gamester? I look upon him as a victim of morbid acquisitiveness induced by Respectability. Pugsley thinks he must keep up his reputation among the Respectables of his set, and to do this he is urged to plunder the poor. He is a dangerous maniac; he ought to be detained and set to hard labour to cure him of his derangement. The stupidest farce played by the Pugsleys is when one of the girls goes district visiting, and tells the wives of the peasants earning twelve shillings a week, that they "ought to put by for a rainy day." I wonder that the women can keep their patience with the ninny. If Miss Clara Pugsley were to use her atrophied brain for five minutes, she would know that no woman with a husband and five children to feed and clothe, and a rent of eighteenpence a week to pay, can save a farthing out of such wages. It is gross insolence of this over-fed, idle, ignorant girl to talk in this fashion to the poor. But this fatuous nonsense is preached all over the country every day in the week. Ladies call it "helping the poor to be thrifty," "elevating the workers," etc. O, Great Pugsley, it is not envy of your possessions that makes me dip my pen in gall, though I know well that is what you will think should you read these words of mine. I would be well content with the income of your under-steward. You have measured human nature with your little foot-rule, and come to the opinion that all men are naturally greedy vampires like yourself. Believe me, Pugsley, you are sadly wrong in this view. I know men and women who would not stain their fingers with your wretched blood-money for their own usage, though they would gladly employ it for the benefit of those from whom you filched it, drib and drab, by underpayment of their hard, dull toil. I wish, how I wish in malignant moments, that I had assurance of a hereafter for Pugsley in a dark, noisome factory, where he would have to work for ten hours a day on skilly. The parson tells me that there is a mansion in the skies prepared for Pugsley. And another equally sumptuous residence for the more honest Bill Brown, the poacher? Why not?