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W. W. Jacobs(William Wymark Jacobs) (8 September 1863 – 1 September 1943), was an English author of short stories and novels. Although much of his work was humorous, he is most famous for a frightening ghost story, "The Monkey's Paw".THE MONEY-BOXSailormen are not good ’ands at saving money as a rule, said thenight-watchman, as he wistfully toyed with a bad shilling on hiswatch-chain, though to ’ear ’em talk of saving when they’re at sea andthere isn’t a pub within a thousand miles of ’em, you might thinkdifferent.It ain’t for the want of trying either with some of ’em, and I’ve knownmen do all sorts o’ things as soon as they was paid off, with a view tosaving. I knew one man as used to keep all but a shilling or two in abelt next to ’is skin so that he couldn’t get at it easy, but it was allno good. He was always running short in the most inconvenient places.I’ve seen ’im wriggle for five minutes right off, with a tramcarconductor standing over ’im and the other people in the tram readingtheir papers with one eye and watching him with the other.Ginger Dick and Peter Russet—two men I’ve spoke of to you afore—tried tosave their money once. They’d got so sick and tired of spending it allin p’r’aps a week or ten days arter coming ashore, and ’aving to go tosea agin sooner than they ’ad intended, that they determined some way orother to ’ave things different.They was homeward bound on a steamer from Melbourne when they made theirminds up; and Isaac Lunn, the oldest fireman aboard—a very steady oldteetotaler—gave them a lot of good advice about it. They all wanted torejoin the ship when she sailed agin, and ’e offered to take a roomashore with them and mind their money, giving ’em what ’e called amoderate amount each day.They would ha’ laughed at any other man, but they knew that old Isaacwas as honest as could be and that their money would be safe with ’im,and at last, after a lot of palaver, they wrote out a paper saying asthey were willing for ’im to ’ave their money and give it to ’em bit bybit, till they went to sea agin.Anybody but Ginger Dick and Peter Russet or a fool would ha’ knownbetter than to do such a thing, but old Isaac ’ad got such a oily tongueand seemed so fair-minded about wot ’e called moderate drinking thatthey never thought wot they was letting themselves in for, and when theytook their pay—close on sixteen pounds each—they put the odd change intheir pockets and ’anded the rest over to him.The first day they was as pleased as Punch. Old Isaac got a nice,respectable bedroom for them all, and arter they’d ’ad a few drinks theyhumoured ’im by ’aving a nice ’ot cup o’ tea, and then goin’ off with’im to see a magic-lantern performance.It was called "The Drunkard’s Downfall," and it begun with a young mangoing into a nice-looking pub and being served by a nice-looking barmaidwith a glass of ale. Then it got on to ’arf pints and pints in the nextpicture, and arter Ginger ’ad seen the lost young man put away six pintsin about ’arf a minute, ’e got such a raging thirst on ’im that ’ecouldn’t sit still, and ’e whispered to Peter Russet to go out with ’im."You’ll lose the best of it if you go now," ses old Isaac, in a whisper;"in the next picture there’s little frogs and devils sitting on the edgeof the pot as ’e goes to drink.""Ginger Dick got up and nodded to Peter.""Arter that ’e kills ’is mother with a razor," ses old Isaac, pleadingwith ’im and ’olding on to ’is coat.

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