shouldn't have to ask twice when I
called upon Henry Peyton. It always does me good to grasp the hand of
such a man as you are."

On the next day, an advance of fifty dollars was asked and obtained.
This sum was lent as promised. In two weeks, the individual who
borrowed it was in New Orleans, from whence he had the best of reasons
for not wishing to return to the North. Of course, the generous Henry
Peyton lost his money.

An increase of salary to a thousand dollars only made him less careful
of his money. Before, he lived as freely as if his income had been
one-third above what it was; now, he increased his expenses in like
ratio. It was a pleasure to him to spend his money--not for himself
alone, but among his friends.

It is no cause of wonder, that in being so generous to some, he was
forced to be unjust to others. He was still behindhand with his poor
washerwoman--owed for boarding, clothes, hats, boots, and a dozen
other matters--and was, in consequence, a good deal harassed with
duns. Still, he was called by some of his old cronies, "a fine,
generous fellow." A few were rather colder in their expressions. He
had borrowed money from them, and did not offer to return it, and he
was such a generous-minded young man, that they felt a delicacy about
calling his attention to it.

"Can you raise two thousand dollars?" was asked of him by a friend,
when he was twenty-seven years old. "If you can, I know a first-rate
chance to get into business."

"Indeed! What is the nature of it?"

The friend told him all he knew, and he was satisfied that a better
offering might never present itself. But two thousand dollars were
indispensable.

"Can't you borrow it?" suggested the friend.

"I will try."

"Try your best. You will never again have such an opportunity."

Peyton did try, but in vain. Those who could lend it to him considered
him "too good-hearted a fellow" to trust with money; and he was forced
to see that tide, which if he could have taken it at the flood, would
have led him on to fortune, slowly and steadily recede.

To Merwin the same offer was made. He had fifteen hundred dollars laid
by, and easily procured the balance. No one was afraid to trust him
with money.

"What a fool I have been!" was the mental exclamation of Peyton, when
he learned that his fellow-clerk had been able, with his own earnings,
on a salary no larger than his own, to save enough to embrace the
golden opportunity which he was