CHAPTER XIII.
PHILOSOPHY.
Mr. George and Rollo held a long conversation on the subject of the lostmoney while they were at breakfast the morning after the robberyoccurred, in the course of which Mr. George taught our hero a good dealof philosophy in respect to the proper mode of bearing such losses.
Before this conversation, however, Rollo's mind had been somewhatexercised, while he was dressing himself in his own room, with thequestion, whether or not his father would make up this loss to him, asone occasioned by an accident. You will recollect that the arrangementwhich Mr. Holiday had made with Mr. George was, that he was to pay Rolloa certain sum for travelling expenses, and that Rollo was to have allthat he could save of this amount for spending money. Rollo was to payall his expenses of every kind out of his allowance, except that, incase of any accident, the extra expense which the occurrence of theaccident should occasion was to be reimbursed to him by his father--orrather by Mr. George, on his father's account.
Now, while Rollo was dressing himself on the morning after his loss, thequestion arose to his mind, whether this was to be considered as anaccident in the sense referred to in the above-named arrangement. Heconcluded that Mr. George thought it was not.
"Because," said he to himself, "if he had thought that this was a losswhich was to come upon father, and not upon me, he would have told me solast night."
When the breakfast had been brought up, and our two travellers wereseated at the table eating it, Rollo introduced the conversation byexpressing his regret that he had not bought the gold watch chain thathe had seen in the Strand.
"How unlucky it was," said he, "that I did not buy that chain, insteadof saving the money to have it stolen away from me! I am _so_ sorry thatI did not buy it!"
"No," replied Mr. George, "you ought not to be sorry at all. You decidedto postpone buying it for good and sufficient reasons of a prudentialcharacter. It was very wise for you to decide as you did; and now youought not to regret it. To wish that you had been guilty of an act offolly, in order to have saved a sovereign by it, is to put gold beforewisdom. But Solomon says, you know, that wisdom is better than gold;yea, than much _fine_ gold."
Rollo laughed.
"Well," said Rollo, "at any rate, I have learned one lesson from it."
"What lesson is that?" said Mr. George.
"Why, to be more careful after this about my money."
"No," replied Mr. George, "I don't think that you have that lesson tolearn. I think you are careful enough now, not only of your money, butof all your other property. Indeed, I think you are a very careful boy;and any greater degree of care and concern than you usually exerciseabout your things would be excessive. The fact is, that in all thepursuits and occupations of life we are exposed to accidents,misfortunes, and losses. The most extreme and constant solicitude andcare will never prevent such losses, but will only prevent our enjoyingwhat we do not lose. It is as foolish, therefore, to be too careful asit is not to be careful enough.
"Indeed," continued Mr. George, "I think the best way is for travellersto do as merchants do. They know that it is inevitable that they shouldmeet with some losses in their business; and so they make a regularallowance for losses in all their calculations."
"How much do they allow?" said Rollo.
"I believe it is usually about five per cent.," said Mr. George. "Theycalculate that, for every one hundred dollars that they trust out inbusiness, they must lose five. Sometimes small losses come along quitefrequently. At other times there will be a long period without any loss,and then some great one will occur; so that, in one way or the other,they are pretty sure in the long run to lose about their regularaverage. So they make their calculations accordingly; and when thelosses come they consider them matters of course, like any of theirordinary expenses."
"That is a good plan," said Rollo.
"I think it is eminently a good plan," said Mr. George, "for travellers.In planning a journey, we ought always to include this item in ourcalculations. We ought to allow so much for conveyance, so much forhotel bills, and so much for losses, and then calculate on the lossesjust as much as we do on the payment of the railroad fares and hotelbills. That is the philosophy of it.
"However," continued Mr. George, "though we ought not to allow any lossthat we may meet with to make us anxious or over-careful afterwards,still we may sometimes learn something by it. For instance, I think itis generally not best to take a watch, or money, or any thing else ofspecial value in our pockets when we go out among a crowd."
"Yes," said Rollo; "if I had only thought to have put my purse in mytrunk when I went out, it would have been safe."
"No," replied Mr. George; "it would not have been _safe_--that is, notperfectly safe--even then; for a thief might have crept into the house,and gone into your room, and opened the lock, and got out the moneywhile you were away."
"But the front door is kept locked," said Rollo.
"True," said Mr. George; "that is a general rule, I know; but it mighthave been left open a few minutes by accident, so that the thief couldget in--such things do happen very frequently; or one of the servants ofthe house might have got the trunk open. So that the money is notabsolutely safe if you leave it in the trunk. In fact, I think that inall ordinary cases it is safer for me to carry my money in my pocketthan to leave it in my trunk in my room. It is only when we are goingamong crowds that it is safer to leave it in our rooms; but there is noabsolute and perfect safety for it any where."
"I don't see," said Rollo, "how they can possibly get the money out sofrom a deep pocket without our knowing it."
"It is very strange," said Mr. George; "but I believe the Londonpickpockets are the most skilful in the world. Sometimes they go ingangs, and they contrive to make a special pressure in the crowd, in anarrow passage, or at a corner, and then some of them jam against thegentleman they are going to rob, pretending that they are jammed byothers behind them, and thus push and squeeze him so hard on every sidethat he does not feel any little touch about his pocket; or, by the timehe does feel and notice it, the purse is gone."
"Yes," said Rollo, "that is exactly the way it was with me.
"But there is one thing I could have done," said Rollo. "If I had put mypurse in my inside jacket pocket, and buttoned up the jacket tight, thenthey could not possibly have got it."
"Yes," said Mr. George, "they have a way of cutting through the clothwith the little sharp point of the knife which they have in a ring onone of their fingers. With this they can cut through the cloth any whereif they feel a purse underneath, and take it out without your knowingany thing about it till you get home."
"I declare!" said Rollo. "Then I don't see what I could do."
"No," replied Mr. George, "there is nothing that we can do to guardabsolutely against the possibility of losing our property when we aretravelling--or in any other case, in fact. There is a certain degree ofrisk that we must incur, and various losses in one way or another willcome. All we have to do is to exercise the right degree of precaution,neither too much nor too little, and then submit good naturedly towhatever comes."
* * * * *
This is the end of the story of Rollo's being robbed, except that, thenext morning after the conversation above described was held, Rollofound on his table, when he got up and began to dress himself, a smallpackage folded up in paper, with a little note by the side of it. Heopened the note and read as follows:--
DEAR ROLLO: From the moment that your loss was ascertained, I determined that I would refund the amount to you, under the authority which I received from your father to pay all expenses which you might incur through unexpected casualties. This robbery I consider as coming under that head; and so I refund you the amount, and have charged it to your father.
I did not tell you what my design was in this respect at once, because I thought I would see how you would bear the loss on the supposition that it was to be your own. I al
so wished to avail myself of the opportunity to teach you a little of the philosophy of the subject. And now, inasmuch as, in learning the lesson, you have shown yourself an excellent pupil, and as you also evince a disposition to bear the loss like a man, there is no longer any reason for postponement; and so I replace the amount that was taken from you by a little package which accompanies this note.
Your affectionate uncle,
G. H.
THE LOSS MADE GOOD.]
On opening the package, which was lying on the table by the side of hisnote, Rollo found within a new wallet very much like the one which hehad lost; and in this wallet were two sovereigns, two pennies, and a newdue bill from his uncle George for four shillings.