bank and got it. Fortunately for him, however,
the bank failed, and he was thrown into the streets. But for this he
would have been a clerk still--a little three dollar machine, which
bears no patent, and possesses no especial value over the ten thousand
other machines capable of performing similar work. His dream of wealth
and position would in all probability never have materialized. He would
doubtless have in time become a head clerk at a respectable salary. But
how little this would have satisfied his ambition! His desire to be at
the head of the firm could never have been realized, for he would not
have had the money to place himself there. The result would have been
clerking, clerking, miserable, aimless clerking, and nothing more.
But now, through what seemed to him his misfortune had come good
fortune--through the drudgery of the hoist had come a business of his
own--a growing, paying, business--_a business of great possibilities_.
The suffering he had undergone did him no permanent harm. On the
contrary it enabled him to appreciate more keenly the opportunity he
now had for making money and supplying himself with the necessaries, and
some of the luxuries, of life.

Young Randolph's brokerage business grew day by day as he added new
customers and learned how to manage it more successfully. In a little
time he saw the necessity of having a place where his customers could
reach him by mail or messenger. He therefore arranged with a party on
Nassau Street to allow him desk room. Then followed this card:

+------------------------------------------------+
| HERBERT RANDOLPH, |
| |
| 111 NASSAU STREET, |
| |
| BUYS AND SELLS NEW YORK. |
| ALL KINDS OF FOREIGN COIN AND PAPER. |
| |
| United States Silver and Postage |
| Stamps a Specialty. |
+------------------------------------------------+

It was with much pleasure that he studied these neatly printed cards.
The first thing he did after receiving them from the printer was to
inclose one in a letter to his mother. He had already written her
glowing accounts of his growing business, and he felt that this card
would give a realism to his pen pictures that he had been unable to
impart. H