Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441, page 1 by Various Authors
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e latter, charm he never so wisely, the former is able, at a certain season of the year, to convert the moneyless gazers into ready-money customers. This he does by the force of logic. 'You are thinking of Christmas,' says he--'yes, you are; and you long to have a plum-pudding for that day--don't deny it. Well, but you can't have it, think as much as you will; it is impossible as you manage at present. But I'll tell you how to get the better of the impossibility. In twenty weeks, we shall have Christmas here: now if, instead of spending every week all you earn, you will hand me over sixpence or a shilling out of your wages, I'll take care of it for you, since you can't take care of it for yourself; and you shall have the full value out of my shop any time in Christmas-week, and be as merry as you like, and none the poorer.'
This logic is irresistible. Tomkins banks his 6d. for a plum-pudding and the etceteras with Mr Allspice the grocer; and this identical pudding he enjoys the pleasure of eating half-a-dozen times over in imagination before the next instalment is due. He at length becomes so fond of the flavour, that he actually--we know, for we have seen him do it--he actually, to use his own expression, 'goes in for a goose' besides with Mr Pluck the poulterer. Having once passed the Rubicon, of course he cannot go back; the weekly sixpences must be paid, come what will: it would be disgraceful to be a defaulter. So he practises a little self-denial, for the sake of a little self-esteem--and the goose and pudding in perspective. He finds, to his astonishment, that he can do quite as much work with one pot of beer a day as he could with two, and he drops the superfluous pot, and not only pays his instalments to the Christmas-bank, but gets a spare shilling in his pocket besides. Thus, under the tuition of the shopkeeper, he learns the practice of prudence in provisioning his family with plum-pudding, and imbibes the first and foremost of the household virtues, on the same principle as a wayward child i