of one who knows a good deal more about the
business than you do, you will go to wood-sawing in preference to
starting a newspaper. You _may_ succeed, but in ten chances, there are
nine on the side of failure."

I shrugged my shoulders and looked incredulous.

"Oh, very well!" said he, "go on and try for yourself. Bought wit is
the best, if you don't pay too dear for it. You are young yet, and a
little experience of this kind may do you no harm in the long run."

"I'm willing to take the risk, for I think I have counted the cost
pretty accurately. As for a failure, I don't mean to know the word.
There is a wide field of enterprise before me, and I intend to occupy
it fully."

The old gentleman shrugged his shoulders in return, but volunteered no
more of his good advice.

A week before the first number of the "Gazette and Reflex" was ready, I
called in my prospectuses, in order to have the thousand or fifteen
hundred names they contained regularly entered in the
subscription-books with which I had provided myself. I had rented an
office and employed a clerk. These were two items of expense that had
not occurred to me when making my first calculation. It was rather a
damper on the ardency of my hopes, to find, that instead of the large
number of subscribers I had fondly expected to receive, the aggregate
from all quarters was but two hundred!

One very active friend, who had guarantied me fifty himself, had but
three names to his list; and another, who said I might set him down for
a hundred, had not been able to do any thing, and, moreover, declined
taking the paper himself, on the plea that he already took more
magazines and newspapers than he could read or afford to pay for.
Others gave as a reason for the little they had done, the want of a
specimen number, and encouraged me with the assurance, that as soon as
the paper appeared, there would be a perfect rush of subscribers.

In due time, the first number appeared, and a very attractive sheet it
was--in my eyes. I took the first copy that came from the press, and,
sitting down in my office, looked it over with a feeling of paternal
pride, never before or since experienced. A more beautiful object, or
rather one that it gave me more delight to view, had never been
presented to my vision. If doubt had come in to disturb me, it all
vanished now. To see the "Gazette and Reflex" would be enough. The two
hundred "good names" on my list were felt to be ample for a s