He thought about it--wrote
about it in his diary, for he was at the journal-age. Wolves, bears
badgers, minks, and muskrats, filled his dreams.

Arriving in Baltimore he was disappointed to learn that there were no
fur traders there. He started for New York.

Here he found work with a certain Robert Bowne, a Quaker, who bought
and sold furs.

Young Astor set himself to learn the business--every part of it. He
was always sitting on the curb at the door before the owner got around
in the morning, carrying a big key to open the warehouse. He was the
last to leave at night. He pounded furs with a stick, salted them,
sorted them, took them to the tanners, brought them home.

He worked, and as he worked, learned.

To secure the absolute confidence of a man, obey him. Only thus do you
get him to lay aside his weapons, be he friend or enemy.

Any dullard can be waited on and served, but to serve requires
judgment, skill, tact, patience and industry.

The qualities that make a youth a good servant are the basic ones for
mastership. Astor's alertness, willingness, loyalty, and ability to
obey, delivered his employer over into his hands.

Robert Bowne, the good old Quaker, insisted that Jacob should call him
Robert; and from boarding the young man with a near-by war widow who
took cheap boarders, Bowne took young Astor to his own house, and
raised his pay from two dollars a week to six.

Bowne had made an annual trip to Montreal for many years.

Montreal was the metropolis for furs. Bowne went to Montreal himself
because he did not know of any one he could trust to carry the message
to Garcia. Those who knew furs and had judgment were not honest, and
those who were honest did not know furs. Honest fools are really no
better than rogues, as far as practical purposes are concerned. Bowne
once found a man who was honest and also knew furs, but alas! he had a
passion for drink, and no prophet could foretell his "periodic," until
after it occurred.

Young Astor had been with Bowne only a year. He spoke imperfect
English, but he did not drink nor gamble, and he knew furs and was
honest.

Bowne started him off for Canada with a belt full of gold; his only
weapon was a German flute that he carried in his hand. Bowne being a
Quaker did not believe in guns. Flutes were a little out of his line,
too, but he preferred them to flintlocks.

John Jacob Astor ascended the Hudson River to Albany, and then with
pack