The result of the first year's business of his old employer's nephew
was very different. The gross profits were three thousand dollars,
and the expenses as follows: personal expense, seven hundred
dollars--just what the young man's salary had previously been, and
out of which he supported his mother and her family--store rent,
three hundred dollars; porter, two hundred and fifty; petty
expenses, one hundred dollars--in all thirteen hundred and fifty
dollars, leaving a net profit of sixteen hundred and fifty dollars.
It will be seen that he did not go to the expense of a clerk during
the first year. He preferred working a little harder, and keeping
his own books, by which an important saving was effected.

At the end of the second year, notwithstanding Jacob Jones's
business more than doubled itself, he was compelled to wind up, and
found himself twenty-five hundred dollars worse than nothing.
Several of his unpaid bills to eastern houses were placed in suit,
and as he lived in a state where imprisonment for debt still
existed, he was compelled to go through the forms required by the
insolvent laws, to keep clear of durance vile.

At the very period when he was driven under by adverse gales, his
young friend, who had gone into business about the same time, found
himself under the necessity of employing a clerk. He offered Jones a
salary of four hundred dollars, the most he believed himself yet
justified in paying. This was accepted, and Jacob found himself once
more standing upon _terra firma_, although the portion upon which
his feet rested was very small; still it was _terra firma_--and that
was something.

The real causes of his ill success never for a moment occurred to