Said a man to his wife one day, ‘Every week, my dear, I give you one pound one: now let me know how you spend it.’ So the wife began to reckon: ‘half-a-crown for rent, three-and-sixpence for bread, two-and-twopence for butter, sugar, and tea, tenpence for coals, and sixpence for wood and coke, twopence-halfpenny for needles, pins, and thread, and sixpence-halfpenny for soap, three and sixpence for meat, three shillings for potatoes and greens, and threepence halfpenny for milk. - She stopped a minute and said, ‘Pray, how much is that?’

Then every morning for your breakfast I must something make,

And once or twice a week, you know, you’ll have a pound of steak.

That will average one-and-sevenpence more, but that is not enough;

You have ninepence for tobacco, fourpence halfpenny for snuff.

And since you take me very close, - you must confess you do, -

There’s three-pence halfpenny every week for soda, starch, and blue;

A pint of beer you have each day - there’s tenpence halfpenny gone:

Now reckon up, and see what’s left out of your one pound one.’