ht 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 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
on his back, struck north, alone, through the