year
contract with him at ten thousand dollars a year, and the contract was
closed. He told me that he and his wife lived on eight dollars a week
in New York, during a large part of this time, and that, by saving and
investments, they laid up $117,000. At the end of his contract, he was
taken into the firm as a partner, and became a millionaire.

Suppose that this boy had listened to his associates, who probably said
to him, many times: "What a fool you are, George, to work here overtime
to do the things which others neglect! Why should you stay here nights
and help pack goods, and all that sort of thing, when it is not
expected of you?" Would he then have risen above them, leaving them in
the ranks of perpetual employees? No, but the boy who walked one
hundred miles to New York to get a job saw in every opportunity a great
occasion, for he could not tell when fate might be taking his measure
for a larger place. The very first time he swept out the store, he
felt within him the ability to become a great merchant, and he
determined that he would be. He felt that the opportunity was the
salary. The chance actually to do with his own hands the thing which
he wanted to learn; to see the way in which princely merchants do
business; to watch their methods; to absorb their processes; to make
their secrets his own,--this was his salary, compared with which the
three dollars and fifty cents looked contemptible. He put himself into
training, always looking out for the main chance. He never allowed
anything of importance to escape his attention. When he was not
working, he was watching others, studying methods, and asking questions
of everybody he came in contact with in the store, so eager was he to
learn how everything was done. He told me that he did not go out of
New York City for twelve years; that he preferred to study the store,
and to absorb every bit of knowledge that he could, for he was bound
some day to be a partner or to have a store of his own.

It is not difficult to see a proprietor in the boy who sweeps the store
or waits on customers--if the qualities that make a proprietor are in
him--by watching him work for a single day. You can tell by the spirit
which he brings to his task whether there is in him the capacity for
growth, expansion, enlargement; an ambition to rise, to be somebody, or
an inclination to shirk, to do as little as possible for the largest
amount of salary.

When you get a job, ju