The printer required half cash, which I agreed to pay.

This arrangement I fondly hoped would give me time to make my
collections, and, besides paying off the debt already accumulated,
enable me to acquire a surplus to meet the notes given, from time to
time, for paper and printing.

At the end of a year, my list, through various exertions and
sacrifices, had arisen to twelve hundred. On this I had collected
eight hundred dollars, and I calculated that there were about
sixteen hundred dollars due me, which, I thought, if all collected
in, would about square me up with the world. This I thought. But,
when I came to go over my bill-book and ledger, I found, to my utter
dismay, that I owed three thousand five hundred dollars! This must
be a mistake, I said, and went over my books again. The result was
as at first. I owed the money, and no mistake. But how it was, I
could not for some time comprehend. But a series of memorandums from
my cash-book, and an examination of printers' and paper makers'
bills, at length made all clear. I had used, on my own personal
account, four hundred dollars during the year. Office rent was two
hundred and fifty. My carriers had cost over a hundred dollars. My
boy one hundred and fifty, and ninety had been paid to the clerk
during the first three months. Sundry little items of expense during
the year made an aggregate of over a hundred. Paper and printing for
the first three months had been nearly a thousand dollars, and for
the last three quarters about twenty-two hundred dollars.

To go on with this odds against me, I had sense enough to see was
perfect folly. But, how could I stop? I was not worth a dollar in
the world; and the thought of wronging those who had trusted me in