ut
would sit up nights with sword and pistol by him to guard his idol
hoard. When his health gave way from anxiety and watching he built an
underground treasure-chamber, so arranged that if any burglar ever
entered, he would step upon a spring which would precipitate him into a
subterranean river, where he could neither escape nor be heard. One
night the miser went to his chest to see that all was right, when his
foot touched the spring of the trap, and he was hurled into the deep,
hidden stream.

"One would think," said Boswell, "that the proprietor of all this
(Keddlestone, the seat of Lord Scarsfield) must be happy." "Nay, sir,"
said Johnson, "all this excludes but one evil, poverty."

John Duncan, the illegitimate child of a Scottish weaver, was ignorant,
near-sighted, bent, a miserable apology for a human being, and at last
a pauper. If he went upon the street he would sometimes be stoned by
other boys. The farmer, for whom he watched cattle, was cruel to him,
and after a rainy day would send him cold and wet to sleep on a
miserable bed in a dark outhouse. Here he would empty the water from
his shoes, and wring out his wet clothes and sleep as best he might.
But the boy had a desire to learn to read, and when, a little later, he
was put to weaving, he persuaded a schoolgirl, twelve years old, to
teach him. He was sixteen when he learned the alphabet, after which
his progress was quite rapid. He was very fond of plants, and worked
overtime for several months to earn five shillings to buy a book on
botany. He became a good botanist, and such was his interest in the
study that at the age of eighty he walked twelve miles to obtain a new
specimen. A man whom he met became interested at finding such a
well-stored mind in such a miserable body, poorly clad, and published
an account of his career. Many readers sent him money, but he saved
it, and left it in his will to found eight scholarships and offer
prizes for the encouragement of the study of natural science by the
poor. His small but valuable library was left for a similar use.

Franklin said money never made a man happy yet; there is nothing in its
nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants.
Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one. A great bank account can
never make a man rich. It is the mind that makes the body rich. No
man is rich, however much money or land he may possess, who has a poor
heart. If that is poor, he is