ll your other
expenses, and leave you what would amount to nearly one hundred
dollars per annum to lay by. I saved nearly two hundred dollars a year
on a salary no larger than you receive."

"I should like very much to know how you did it. I can't save a cent;
in fact, I hardly ever have ten dollars in my pocket."

"Where does your money go, Jacob? In what way do you spend a hundred
dollars a year more than is necessary?"

"They are spent, I know; and that is pretty much all I can tell about
it," replied Jacob.

"You can certainly tell by your private account book."

"I don't keep any private account, sir."

"You don't?" in surprise.

"No, sir. What's the use? My salary is five hundred dollars a year,
and wouldn't be any more nor less if I kept an account of every half
cent of it."

"Humph!"

The merchant said no more. His mind was made up about his clerk. The
fact that he spent five hundred dollars a year, and kept no
private account, was enough for him.

"He'll never be any good to himself nor anybody else. Spend his whole
salary--humph! Keep no private account--humph!"

This was the opinion held of Jacob Jones by his employer from that
day. The reason why he had inquired as to how much money he had saved,
was this. He had a nephew, a poor young man, who, like Jacob, was a
clerk, and showed a good deal of ability for business. His salary was
rather more than what Jacob received, and, like Jacob, he spent it
all; but not on himself. He supported, mainly, his mother and a
younger brother and sister. A good chance for a small, but safe
beginning, was seen by the uncle, which would require only about a
thousand dollars as an investment. In his opinion it would be just
the thing for Jacob and the nephew. Supposing that Jacob had four or
five hundred dollars laid by, it was his intention, if he approved of
the thing, to furnish his nephew with a like sum, in order to join him
and enter into business. But the acknowledgment of Jacob that he had
not saved a dollar, and that he kept no private account, settled the
matter in the merchant's mind, as far as he was concerned.

About a month afterward, Jacob met his employer's nephew, who said,

"I am going into business."

"You are?"

"Yes."

"What are you going to do?"

"Open a commission store."

"Ah! Can you get any good consignments?"

"I am to have the agency for a new mill, which has just commenced
operations, beside consignments of goods from seve