legal proceedings for the present, and Jacob had the immediate
terrors of the law taken from before his eyes.

This event set Jacob to thinking and calculating, which he had never
before deemed necessary in his private affairs. The result did not
make him feel any happier. To his astonishment, he ascertained that
he owed more than the whole of his next year's salary would pay,
while that was not in itself sufficient to meet his current
expenses.

For some weeks after this discovery of the real state of his
affairs, Jacob was very unhappy. He applied for an increase of
salary, and obtained one hundred dollars per annum. This was
something, which was about all that could be said. If he could live
on four hundred dollars a year, which he had never yet been able to
do, the addition to his salary would not pay his tailor's bill
within two years; and what was he to do with boot-maker, landlady,
and others?

It happened about this time that a clerk in the bank where his old
employer was director died. His salary was one thousand dollars. For
the vacant place Jacob made immediate application, and was so
fortunate as to secure it.

Under other circumstances, Jacob would have refused a salary of
fifteen hundred dollars in a bank against five hundred in a
counting-room, and for the reason that a bank-clerk has little or no
hope beyond his salary all his life, while a counting-house clerk,
if he have any aptness for trade, stands a fair chance of getting
into business sooner or later, and making his fortune as a merchant.