him to slip comfortably through life.

Happily for his own comfort, he had but a speaking acquaintance with
politics. He was not a blue Federalist, and he never d'd the Democrats.
With unconscious skill he shot the angry rapids of discussion, and swept,
by a sure instinct, toward the quiet water on which he liked to ride. In
the counting-room or the meeting of directors, when his neighbors waxed
furious upon raking over some outrage of that old French infidel, Tom
Jefferson, as they called him, sending him and his gun-boats where no
man or boat wants to go, Mr. Gray rolled his neck in his white cravat,
crossed his legs, and shook his black-gaitered shoe, and beamed, and
smiled, and blew his nose, and hum'd, and ha'd, and said, "Ah, yes!"
"Ah, indeed?" "Quite so!" and held his tongue.

Mr. Savory Gray minded his own business; but his business did not
mind him. There came a sudden crash--one of the commercial earthquakes
that shake fortunes to their foundations and scatter failure on every
side. One day he sat in his office consoling his friend Jowlson, who
had been ruined. Mr. Jowlson was terribly agitated--credit gone--fortune
wrecked--no prospects--"O wife and children!" he cried, rocking to and
fro as he sat.

"My dear Jowlson, you must not give way in this manner. You must
control your feelings. Have we not always been taught," said Mr. Gray,
as a clerk brought in a letter, the seal of which the merchant broke
leisurely, and then skimmed the contents as he continued, "that riches
have wings and--my God!" he ejaculated, springing up, "I am a ruined
man!"

So he was. Every thing was gone. Those pretty riches that chirped and
sang to him as he fed them; they had all spread their bright plumage,
like a troop of singing birds--have we not always been taught that they
might, Mr. Jowlson?--and had flown away.

To undertake business anew was out of the question. His friends said,
"Poor Gray! what shall be done?"

The friendly merchants pondered and pondered. The worthy Jowlson, who
had meanwhile engaged as book-keeper upon a salary of seven hundred
dollars a year--one of the rare prizes--was busy enough for his friend,
consulting, wondering, planning. Mr. Gray could not preach, nor practice
medicine, nor surgery, nor law, because men must be instructed in those
professions; and people will not trust a suit of a thousand dollars, or
a sore throat, or a broken thumb, in the hands of a man who has not
fitted himself car