ability and industry, with double your chances of success in life;
for men will put confidence in you beyond what they can in others,
who do not stand so fairly in common estimation.

In due time Ralph Gilpin and Jacob Peters entered the world as men,
but not at equal advantage. They had learned the same business, and
were both well acquainted with its details; but Ralph stood fairer
in the eyes of business men, with whom he had come in contact,
because he had been more careful about his reputation.

While Jacob was twenty-three years of age, he was getting a salary
of one thousand dollars a year; but this was too small a sum to meet
the demands that had come upon him. His father, to whom he was
tenderly attached, had lost his health and failed in business. In
consequence of this, the burden of maintaining the family fell
almost entirely on Jacob. It would not have been felt as a burden if
his income had been sufficient for their support. But it was not,
unless their comfortable style of living was changed, and all shrunk
together in a smaller house. He had sisters just advancing towards
womanhood, and for their sakes, particularly, did he regret the
stern necessity that required a change.

About this time, the death of a responsible clerk in the house of A.
& L. left a vacancy to be filled, and as Jacob was in every way
competent to take the position, which commanded a salary of eighteen
hundred dollars he made application; Ralph Gilpin, who was a
salesman in the house, said all that he could in Jacob's favor; but
the latter had not been careful to preserve a good name, and this
was against him. The place was one of trust, and the members of the
firm, after considering the matter, decided adversely. Nothing as to
fact was alleged or known. Not a word as to his conduct in life was
said against him. But he had often been seen in company with young
men who did not bear a solid reputation, and where doubt existed, it
was not considered safe to employ him. So that good opportunity was
lost--lost through his own fault.

Poor Jacob felt gloomy and disappointed for a time; talked of
"fate," "bad luck," and all that kind of nonsense, when the cause of
his ill-success was to be attributed solely to an unwise disregard
of appearances.

"We shall have to remove," he said to his mother in a troubled way,
after this disappointment. "If I had secured the situation at A. &
L.'s all would have been well with us. But now nothing