Chapter 6

half as much--upon a solemn promise to redeem it, as even the pawnbroker doubted the wisdom of such an investment at his own figures. That week the young man encountered a gentleman who, in England, had known him well. The disparity in their positions was great, as the gentleman was now able to give and recently had given his church ten thousand dollars, but that disparity had been greater in England, where it had been in favor of the young man. However, this did not prevent the gentleman offering the young man a job of gardening at a dollar a day, as that was a good bargain, and that did not prevent the young man eagerly accepting the offer. That week he earned his board. The next week he was adrift again, quite well used up from heavy work, but very active. His hope was the one striking point in his character.

HIS CHEERY VOICE

could always be heard. People liked to have him around, but they never seemed to pay him anything in return. Early in June he got a job sandpapering window-frames in a city cellar. This tried his mettle for it broke his hands to pieces, but he worked through the job at eight dollars a week. It ruined about twenty-five dollars' worth of clothes unavoidably. Coming out of the cellar the last day of the job, he looked into a store which was just opening. Did they want clerks? Oh, yes. "Lots" of them. How much did they pay? Five per cent. What were they to sell? "Milton gold jewelry." All right.

"MILTON GOLD JEWELRY"

was made a sensation. It was all in the name. Had they called it brass the people would have stood off. Make a chain that looks like gold, call it Milton or Shakspeare or Byron gold, and the people want it--or, at least they did, the year of the fire. The sales of our friend footed up more than those of any of thirty clerks, and netted him about a dollar and a quarter a day. But this charming industry could not last. The people had bought a chain which they supposed to be worth sixty dollars for a dollar and a half. In two weeks the chain would fade. It was a necessity of the business to keep moving. Our friend could have gone to some other city with the lover of Milton, if he had paid his own fare, but he was heartily disgusted with the business, the scheme being essentially American. He next was taken to Morris, Ill., by some kind of a gang-worker. The English system of working from farm to farm with a large force was to be tried. There he was treated a good deal worse than hogs should be used. Finding his way back to Chicago, he again began

HIS TRAMP FOR WORK.

He called on an advertiser who wanted him to travel at a figure so low that the question arose as to how he would pay his board, when the advertiser told him he supposed his applicant understood that he "would have to beat the hotels!" In September came the news of the death of his sister and mother. And still he tramped. He was now in what his casual acquaintances considered "a hard hole." His landlady was "carrying" him--that is, she was wanting his room worse than his company, but, being a kind-hearted Irish woman, she could not believe another week would pass without better success. No one with a trade--no one with the slightest influence--knows what difficulties are before a stranger in a strange land.

AS GOD WOULD HAVE IT,

on Saturday the seventh of October, 1871, he started out, again full of hope. About a mile and a half to the west of the city he entered a hotel at which he had often applied before. The proprietor had broken his leg the day before. He wanted "a likely young man," Here was one. The proprietor was himself an Englishman. Here was a youth whose rosy cheeks proclaimed the shores of Albion. On Sunday he made ready. That night and the following two days there came a calamity that horrified the civilized world--perhaps the barbarians as well. The employers who had refused him shelter and food ran like droves of wolves before a prairie-fire, and filled their famished bodies off a charity that has been likened to that of the Savior of the world, so freely was it given. His hotel was not burned. In the arduous labors of housing three where one had before been quartered he showed an ability which attracted the attention of a dealer in real estate who soon took him into his office. Here he learned a trade. His employer soon found that he had a man who could make a map worth fifty dollars as well as the map-makers, and this gave the young man practice. Hope, kindled into such a flame, led the young man in a march of improvement that even continued in his dreams, for he often dreamed out some combination of colors, some freak of lettering, that elicited everybody's admiration. All this improvement

DID NOT COME IN A WEEK OR A YEAR,

but it led to his permanent engagement in a substantial enterprise of the kind, where work, elegant and original, will always await him, and where his usefulness is ever apparent to the most unwilling investigator. From being the victim of the most cruel circumstances which a man in health ever encountered under my observation, he has become the valued companion of the leaders of thought, of art, and of music, and I feel confident that the whole of his ultimate success at one time in his career depended on the fact that he had more hope than any other man I ever saw.

HOPE IS LIKE THE CORK TO THE NET,

which keeps the soul from sinking in despair. Hope is the sun, which as we journey towards it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us. Dr. Johnson has well and truly said that the flights of the human mind are not from enjoyment to enjoyment, but from hope to hope. It is a strange frailty of human nature that we part more willingly with what we really possess than with our expectations of what we wish for. The man who curbs this tendency is known as a man of wisdom. What a beautiful poem is

CAMPBELL'S "PLEASURES OF HOPE!"

How the changes ring upon the beauties of "Hope, the charmer," until, at last, we see her smiling at the general conflagration, we see her lighting her torch at nature's funeral pile! And yet what an ingenious device was that of the ancient, who, knowing the powerful allurements of Hope, put on the front of the magic shield "Be bold! Be bold!" and on the other side "Be not too bold!" There is a development of hope known as audacity. A touch of audacity is generally considered necessary to get along in the world. Be careful that your audacity is never called "cheek." When you have rights to retrieve, you cannot be too audacious; when you expect something for nothing, and demand instead of appealing, you are "cheeky." It does not pay in the long run. It is the sign and seal of a greedy nature.

WHEN POOR FRANCE

trembled in the nightmare of the Revolution, and the Kings of Europe had agreed to conquer and dismember her, there arose a dark-faced man in the tribune of the French Congress. He was a man of terrible personal power and magnetism. Hope must have cradled him in his babyhood. He hurled a defiance at Europe that fairly shook France to a delirium of patriotism, and as he was drawing to a close he thundered; "What needs France to vanquish her enemies, to terrify them? Naught but audacity!--still more audacity!--always! audacity!" Fourteen republican armies sprang forth full armed, as though Danton's words had been the fabulous dragon's teeth sown ages before in the bright fields of mythology.

FRANCE WAS RIGHT,

therefore God inspired her. Be sure, when your flights are bold, that you have the right. "Thrice armed is he who hath his quarrel just." Hope has been defamed more than any other of the joys of life, just as the most charitable become the target of the greater portion of the malignity of fault-finding fellow-creatures. Treat Hope fairly, my young friend, and she will never desert you, neither will she poison your expectations, as did the hags who prophesied to Macbeth.

BE CORRECT.

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.--Pope.

I have here quoted one of the grandest flights of the human fancy, and with a purpose. If God, who is perfection, and in whose image we are faintly formed, watches the weakliest of his lambs, supports the weariest of his poor sparrows, should not we, in trying to be true men, endeavor to pay equal care to all things intrusted to our attention, be they great or be they small! And more than that. The little errors beget myriads of their kind. "Many mickles make a muckle." The habit sooner or later, leads some of us into an awful abyss, where it had been better we had not lived. Errors creep into character just as ideas get into our brain. Says Moore:

And how like forts, to which beleaguers win Unhoped-for entrance through some friend within, One clear idea, wakened in the breast By memory's magic, lets in all the rest.

Says Franklin: "A little neglect may breed great mischief; for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a horse the driver was lost; being overtaken and slain by an enemy, all for the want of care about a horse-shoe nail." "In persons grafted with a serious trust," says Shakspeare "negligence is a serious crime." And so it is.

STORY OF SAG BRIDGE.

In September, 1873, a conductor on the Chicago and Alton Railroad started south with a freight train. He was to stop at a station a few miles from Joliet and wait for the incoming passenger train from St. Louis. He consulted his watch. That unhappy piece of mechanism told him that he had time to reach the next station. He spoke to the operator of the telegraph. That person could give him no information as to where the passenger train was, and he, determining not to wait, pulled out. As his train was still within hearing, the operator rushed to the platform with the news that the passenger train had left the nearest station! The operator knew that

TWO TRAINS WERE ABOUT TO COME IN COLLISION,

a knowledge that has sometimes deprived railroad men of their minds forever. Soon the awful shock reverberated afar, and from nine to fifteen persons were killed in a horrible manner. One of the most prominent men of Chicago was scalded so that the flesh left his skeleton. An unkind fate preserved the conductor to confront his ignominy. It was found that

HE HAD FORGOTTEN TO WIND UP HIS WATCH!

How could such a butchery have been brought about, save by a course of small errors which had eaten into his moral nature, leaving him a great ghoulish fiend of Carelessness, running his pitiless Juggernaut up and down the highway between two great cities! The hideous errors made by men are always indicative of those particular men. Some people never make errors at all! Why? Because they are careful. Simple, is it not--like Napoleon's tactics? Yet that constant care is so wonderful in its effects that human science cannot peer into the mystery of its action. Men laboring under total aberration of the mind have been known to carefully wind a clock at a given hour, and evince no other power to do a reasonable thing. Begin early in life to do all these little things with the greatest care.

IMITATE THE CELEBRATED DETECTIVES,

who actually pay little attention to things gross and palpable, but follow the more closely those minute clews which, interlacing and concentering, often as a whole, lead them, with the greatest certainty, to the dark hand that did the foul deed. Here is

A RIDICULOUS ERROR:

On Tuesday, the third of May, 1881, Scranton, Willard & Co., brokers, of New York City, sold to Decker & Co. stocks to the enormous sum of $127,000. For this property Decker & Co. wrote a check on a bank for $127,000, and a messenger was sent by the cashier of Scranton, Willard & Co., to have the check certified--that is, to have the bank officials write across the face of the check in red ink "Certified," meaning that the money was there and would thenceforth be dedicated to the redemption of that particular piece of paper. The boy returned with the check, the cashier put upon his own file a "tag" representing the amount of money, along with many other similar records, and the boy was sent with the check to the Bank of North America. The boy handed to the banker, with the check, a similar "tag" from the cashier, which was also filed. When you deposit money, at many banks, you fill out a "tag" or deposit-check, and offer it with the money, which "tag" is used by the banker as a safeguard against errors and lapses of all kinds. When Scranton, Willard & Co.'s cashier reckoned up his "tags" he found no record of a check for $127,000. He immediately accused the boy of purloining the check, and inquiry at the bank (met by the reply that no such check had been deposited, as shown by the depositor's own "tags") strengthened his suspicions.

ALL THE BANKS OF NEW YORK

were at once notified of the loss of the great check, and costly engagements were made to advertise the matter all over the country. The boy was not arrested, but his case was not neglected, you may be assured. Repeated cross-questioning failed to shake his simple statement, that he had done as he had been told to do.

THE ACCOUNTS OF THE BANK OF NORTH AMERICA

were behind that afternoon, and the cashier stayed until late in the day to get them balanced. After he had finally secured the totals of the day's transactions, he found that he had received, according to the depositors' "tags," $114,300 less than he had paid out. In some perturbation he recalled the notice of Scranton, Willard & Co., and at once sent to them, to see if that affair had anything to do with his immense discrepancy. Following this line of inquiry, Scranton, Willard & Co.'s cashier found that, in attempting to put the figures "127,000" on the "tag" of deposit he had neglected to write the last cipher, and the "tag" for $12,700 which had been made in its place, added to $114,300 which the banker lacked in "tags," exactly made up the $127,000 which the bank had in reality credited to Scranton, Willard & Co.'s account. How could a man leave off

A CIPHER WHICH MEANT $114,300?

Simply by a course of instruction and development in error, until, probably nothing save the most colossal sums would command his unqualified attention. Let us suppose your mother or sister gives you a letter to mail. Do not put that letter in your pocket. Carry it in your hand until you reach the place to post it. Do this for years. After that drill, when you get a letter to mail, you will not need to keep it in your hand, for you will feel it in your hand just as long as it is in your pocket, as the one-armed man has sensations in both hands!

"WE NEVER MAKE MISTAKES!"

I spoke in the preceding chapter of the ancient shield with its "Be Bold! Be Bold!" Now, on our modern shield we would put "Be Correct! Be Correct!" and it would not be necessary to put on the reverse side "Be not too Correct!" You cannot afford to make errors! Last year a gentleman drew a sum of money from the First National Bank of New York City. As he was about to leave the building, he discovered an error. He returned to the paying teller. He said: "I think you have made a mistake in paying me." The cashier stood there, by chance. "No, sir," said he, "we never make mistakes!" "But," said the gentleman, "you gave me twenty dollars too much money!" "_No, sir!_" thundered the cashier, "we _never_ make mistakes!" Not for twenty dollars in cash would that banker admit that the establishment with which he was connected ever made a mistake. And you can be assured that

SUCH A SPARTAN SPIRIT WEEDS OUT

most of the ordinary blunders of business. Now if this great rich banker could not afford to indulge in mistakes, how much less can you, who have your whole fortune to make, be anything less than strictly accurate in all your operations? Study the spirit of that banker's answer. Imitate his horror of an error. He must have had good reasons for that feeling.

A HOMELY EXAMPLE.

A customer comes in from the country. He says: "I have brought a load of wheat to town to-day--about fifty bushel I should guess. I'll be in after noon and settle my account with you." Very good; you, the clerk, hurry to your books, to make out his account. When he comes in, he glances over it, and says: "Good gracious! you haven't given me credit for four dollars and seventy-five cents I paid you last May. I recollect it because I was in town to get a corn-planter when I paid it. And I've got your receipt, too." Sure enough, there is the receipt, which you have filled out yourself. And yet you failed to make an entry of the fact in his account. Shame covers you.

THE FARMER BEGINS TO HAVE SUSPICIONS.

Your employer begins to talk of the fall plowing as soon as he can, but the farmer goes over to your unscrupulous competitors in business, relates to them the fact that his scrupulous attention to details has saved him four dollars and seventy-five cents, and asks their opinion as to whether or not an attempt were not made to cheat him. His listeners talk about you in a mild-mannered way--

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer.

Off goes your customer in his lumber-wagon, carrying that gross libel upon your place of business, to fill the prairies and the openings with its brood of gossiped offspring, until, some day, it comes back that your employer is a horsethief and has served a term in the penitentiary!

The errors which are often made in handling figures are just as annoying. It is a trifling error to call eight and four thirteen, but it often may disconcert an immense calculation. Like the pebble in the shoe, small in itself, it may do great injury. Some years ago there traveled through the country a genuine "lightning calculator." You could put down any number, big or little, while his back was turned, and he would turn again and mark the total with far greater rapidity than he could speak, and he thought out the total far quicker than he could mark it. Of course, he had a magic book to sell, but when you came to read his magic book and see how he did it, you found it was the same old way, only he was more expert than you. He could add four thousand two hundred and twenty eight and three thousand six hundred and fifty four as easily as you could forty two and thirty six, or perhaps four and three, so you see that the scheme of running up a single column of figures is at best a clumsy one.

YOU EXPOSE YOURSELF

to additional errors by enlarging the possible additions in a body of numbers. We are taught the multiplication table up to twelve times twelve. We never stumble up to that point. But it ought to continue up to one hundred times one hundred. We could then always add two figures to two figures easier then to parcel the operation out into two jobs. The "lightning calculator" had probably carried it up to five thousand times five thousand. Take an interest in "sums." Learn

THE FREAKS OF FIGURES.

For instance, to multiply any set of figures by 11--say 54--add the 5 and 4 together and put the 9 between the 5 and the 4. To multiply 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 by 11, do the same way, only carry your 10's. Thus 6 and 5 are 11, put down 1 before the 6; 5 and 4 are 9 and 1 to carry is 10; put down the before the 16, etc. Again to multiply, say 18 9's by 9, bring down a 1, then make 170's and a 9 out to the left. Again to square numbers, call even 10's the body; call the rest the surplus,--104--add surplus to body making it 108; now square the surplus (4) making 16 and put it after the 108, or 10,816. This is simply taking advantage of the 10s. Take 33 and you will see. Here 3 is the surplus; add the surplus, making 36; multiply 36 by 30, making 1,080; square the surplus, 3 times 3--9; add to 1,080--making 1,089. You see you get an even thirty to multiply by and load up the sum to be multiplied sufficiently to balance. Above 5 call it a deficit and go to your next 10 for your body.

I MENTION THESE TRICKS

not because they are good for anything practical, but to get you to take up figures and be quick with them. Get yourself up a multiplication table running to 50 times 50--there's something practical. The man quick and accurate at figures is always esteemed.

OUR LANGUAGE

is a vast record of the changes in pronunciation which have been brought about by affected people as well as careless and ignorant people. "'Tis true 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true." But you cannot change it by spelling "balance" with two _ls_, or "sure" with an _h_. Be accurate in your spelling. Restrict yourself to such words as you can spell, and you will soon improve if you are guilty of such errors. In conclusion, if you go fishing and catch three perch and one black bass, say that you caught those fish, and not that you caught three black bass and one perch. Right there is where you can form habits that will shine out in your face as you grow to the full dignity of manhood. You see I lay special stress on habit. The Duke of Wellington said that habit was ten times nature. Horace Mann said

"HABIT IS A CABLE.

We weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it." Dr. Locke said with a wonderful knowledge of life: "Habit works more constantly and with greater facility than reason; which, when we have most need of it, is seldom fairly consulted, and more rarely obeyed." Thus, you see, when a man is spoken of as a person "of good habits," it means something more than is usually conceived. It means he is under chains which he cannot break--and, in reality, that he could not be a bad man without suffering and discomfort.

SUCCESS.

Nothing succeeds so well as success.--Talleyrand.