The result of the first year's business was an
income from commission on sales of seven hundred dollars. Against this
were the items of one thousand dollars for personal expenses, five
hundred dollars for store-rent, seven hundred dollars for clerk and
porter, and for petty and contingent expenses, two hundred dollars;
leaving the uncomfortable deficit of seventeen hundred dollars, which
stood against him in the form of bills payable for sales effected, and
small notes of accommodation borrowed from his friends.

The result of the first year's business of his old employer's nephew
was very different. The gross profits were three thousand dollars, and
the expenses as follows: personal expense, seven hundred dollars--just
what the young man's salary had previously been, and out of which he
supported his mother and her family--store-rent, three hundred
dollars; porter, two hundred and fifty, petty expenses one hundred
dollars--in all, thirteen hundred and fifty dollars, leaving a net
profit of sixteen hundred and fifty dollars. It will be seen that he
did not go to the expense of a clerk during the first year. He
preferred working a little harder, and keeping his own books, by which
an important saving was effected.

At the end of the second year, notwithstanding Jacob Jones' business
more than doubled itself, he was compelled to wind up, and found
himself twenty-five hundred dollars worse than nothing. Several of his
unpaid bills to eastern houses were placed in suit, and as he lived in
a state where imprisonment for debt still existed, he was compelled to
go through the forms required by the insolvent laws, to keep clear of
durance vile.

At the very period when he was driven under by adverse gales, his
young friend, who had gone into business about the same time, found
himself under the necessity of employing a clerk. He offered Jones a
salary of four hundred dollars, the most he believed himself yet
justified in paying. This was accepted, and Jacob found himself once
more standing upon _terra firma_, although the portion upon which his
feet rested was very small, still it was _terra firma_--and that was
something.

The real causes of his ill success never for a moment occurred to the
mind of Jacob. He considered himself an "unlucky dog."

"Every thing that some people touch turns to money," he would
sometimes say. "But I wasn't born under a lucky star."

Instead of rigidly bringing down his expenses, as he ought