entering business with a capital of ten thousand dollars, the joint
property of himself and an only sister.

Sidney Lawrence had been raised in a large mercantile establishment,
that was doing an immense business and making heavy profits. But all
its operations were based upon adequate capital and enlarged
experience. When he commenced for himself, he could not brook the
idea of keeping near the shore, like a little boat, and following
its safer windings; he felt like launching out boldly into the ocean
and reaching the desired haven by the quickest course. He wished to
accumulate money rapidly, and believed that, on the capital he
possessed, five or six thousand dollars a year might as easily be
made as one thousand, if a man only had sufficient enterprise to
push business vigorously. The careful, plodding course pursued by
some, and strongly recommended to him, he despised. It was beneath a
man of true business capacity.

"As I said before, nothing venture, nothing gain," replied Lawrence
to the old merchant's good advice. "I am not content to eke out a
thousand or two dollars every year, and, at the age of fifty or
sixty, retire from business on a paltry twenty or thirty thousand
dollars. I must get rich fast, or not at all."

"Remember the words of Solomon, my young friend," returned the
merchant. "'_He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be
innocent._' Among all the sayings of the wise man, there is not one
truer than that. I have been in business for thirty years, and have
seen the rise and fall of a good many 'enterprising' men, who were
in a hurry to get rich. Their history is an instructive lesson to
all who will read it. Some got rich, or at least appeared to get