of duty.

UNFORGOTTEN WORDS

"Have you examined that bill, James?"

"Yes, sir."

"Anything wrong?"

"I find two errors."

"Ah, let me see."

The lad handed his employer a long bill that had been placed on his
desk for examination.

"Here is an error in the calculation of ten dollars, which they have
made against themselves; and another of ten dollars in the footing."

"Also against themselves?"

"Yes, sir."

The merchant smiled in a way that struck the lad as peculiar.

"Twenty dollars against themselves," he remarked in a kind of pleasant
surprise. "Trusty clerks they must have!"

"Shall I correct the figures?" asked the lad.

"No, let them correct their own mistakes. We don't examine bills for
other people's benefit," replied the merchant. "It will be time to
rectify those errors when they find them out. All so much gain as it
now stands."

The boy's delicate moral sense was shocked at so unexpected a remark.
He was the son of a poor widow, who had given him to understand that
to be just was the duty of man.

Mr. Carman, the merchant in whose employment he had been for only a
few months, was an old friend of his father, and a person in whom he
reposed the highest confidence. In fact, James had always looked upon
him as a kind of model man; and when Mr. Carman agreed to take him
into his store, he felt that great good fortune was in his way.

"Let them correct their own mistakes." These words made a strong
impression on the mind of James Lewis. When first spoken by Mr.
Carman, and with the meaning then involved, he felt, as we have said,
shocked; but as he turned them over again in his thoughts, and
connected their utterance with a person who stood so high in his
mother's estimation, he began to think that perhaps the thing was fair
enough in business. Mr. Carman was hardly the man to do wrong. A few
days after James had examined the bill, a clerk from the house by
which it had been rendered, called for settlement. The lad, who was
present, waited with interest to see whether Mr. Carman would speak of
the error. But he made no remark. A check for the amount of the bill
rendered, was filled up, and a receipt taken.

"Is that right?" James asked himself this question. His moral sense
said no; but the fact that Mr. Carman had so acted, bewildered his
mind.

"It may be the way in business"--so he thought to himself--"but it
don't look honest. I wouldn't have believed it of him."

Mr. Ca