the mind of Jacob. He considered himself an "unlucky dog."

"Every thing that some people touch turns into money," he would
sometimes say. "But I was not born under a lucky star."

Instead of rigidly bringing down his expenses, as he ought to have
done, to four hundred dollars, if he had to live in a garret and
cook his own food, Jacob went back to his old boarding-house, and
paid four dollars a week. All his other expenses required at least
eight dollars more to meet them. He was perfectly aware that he was
living beyond his income--the exact excess he did not stop to
ascertain--but he expected an increase of salary before long, as a
matter of course, either in his present situation or in a new one.
But no increase took place for two years, and then he was between
three and four hundred dollars in debt to tailors, boot-makers, his
landlady, and to sundry friends, to whom he applied for small sums
of money in cases of emergency.

One day, about this time, two men were conversing together quite
earnestly, as they walked leisurely along one of the principal
streets of the city where Jacob resided. One was past the prime of
life, and the other about twenty-two. They were father and son, and
the subject of conversation related to the wish of the latter to
enter into business. The father did not think the young man was
possessed of sufficient knowledge of business or experience, and
was, therefore, desirous of associating some one with him who could
make up these deficiencies. If he could find just the person that
pleased him, he was ready to advance capital and credit to an amount
somewhere within the neighbourhood of twenty thousand dollars. For
some months he had been thinking of Jacob, who was a first-rate