id try, but in vain. Those who could lend it to him considered
him "too good-hearted a fellow" to trust with money; and he was forced
to see that tide, which if he could have taken it at the flood, would
have led him on to fortune, slowly and steadily recede.

To Merwin the same offer was made. He had fifteen hundred dollars laid
by, and easily procured the balance. No one was afraid to trust him
with money.

"What a fool I have been!" was the mental exclamation of Peyton, when
he learned that his fellow-clerk had been able, with his own earnings,
on a salary no larger than his own, to save enough to embrace the
golden opportunity which he was forced to pass by. "They call Merwin
_mean_ and _selfish_--and I am called a _generous fellow_. That means,
he has acted like a wise man, and I like a fool, I suppose. I know him
better than they do. He is neither mean nor selfish, but careful and
prudent, as I ought to have been. His mother is poor, and so is mine.
Ah, me!" and the thought of his mother caused him to clasp both hands
against his forehead. "I believe two dollars of his salary have been
sent weekly to his poor mother. But I have never helped mine a single
cent. There is the mean man, and here is the generous one. Fool! fool!
wretch! He has fifteen hundred dollars ahead, after having sent his
mother one hundred dollars a year for five or six years, and I am over
five hundred dollars in debt. A fine, generous fellow, truly!"

The mind of Peyton was, as it should be, disturbed to its very centre.
His eyes were fairly opened, and he saw just where he stood, and what
he was worth as a generous man.

"They have flattered my weakness," said he, bitterly, "to eat and drink
and ride at my expense. It was easy to say, 'how free-hearted he is,'
so that I could hear them. A cheap way of enjoying the good things of
life, verily! But the end has come to all this. I am just twenty-seven
years old to-day; in five years more I shall be thirty-two. My salary
is one thousand dollars. I pay one hundred and fifty dollars a year for
boarding; one hundred and fifty more shall clothe me and furnish all my
spending-money, which shall be precious little. One year from to-day,
if I live, I will owe no man a dollar. My kind old mother, whom I have
so long neglected, shall hear from me at once--ten dollars every month
I dedicate to her. Come what will, nothing shall touch that. After I am
clear of debt, I will save all above my necessary ex