



Produced by David T. Jones, Juliet Sutherland and the
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GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE.

VOL. XXXII. PHILADELPHIA, APRIL, 1848. NO. 4.

JACOB JONES.

OR THE MAN WHO COULDN'T GET ALONG IN THE WORLD.

BY T. S. ARTHUR.


Jacob Jones was clerk in a commission store at a salary of five
hundred dollars a year. He was just twenty-two, and had been receiving
this salary for two years. Jacob had no one to care for but himself;
but, somehow or other, it happened that he did not lay up any money,
but, instead, usually had from fifty to one hundred dollars standing
against him on the books of his tailors.

"How much money have you laid by, Jacob?" said one day the merchant
who employed him. This question came upon Jacob rather suddenly; and
coming from the source that it did, was not an agreeable one--for the
merchant was a very careful and economical man.

"I havn't laid by any thing yet," replied Jacob, with a slight air of
embarrassment.

"You havn't!" said the merchant, in surprise. "Why what have you done
with your money?"

"I've spent it, somehow or other."

"It must have been somehow or other, I should think, or somehow else,"
returned the employer, half seriously, and half playfully. "But
really, Jacob, you are a very thoughtless young man to waste your
money."

"I don't think I _waste_ my money," said Jacob.

"What, then, have you done with it?" asked the merchant.

"It costs me the whole amount of my salary to live."

The merchant shook his head.

Then you live extravagantly for a young man of your age and condition.
How much do you pay for boarding?"

"Four dollars a week."

"Too much by from fifty cents to a dollar. But, even paying that sum,
four more dollars per week ought to meet fully all your other
expenses, and leave you what would amount to nearly one hundred
dollars per annum to lay by. I saved nearly two hundred dollars a year
on a salary no larger than you receive."

"I should like very much to know how you did it. I can't save a cent;
in fact, I hardly ever have ten dollars in my pocket."

"Where does your money go, Jacob? In what way do you spend a hundred
dollars a year more than is necessary?"

"They are spent, I know; and that is pretty much all I can tell about
it," replied Jacob.

"You can certainly tell by your private account book."

"I don't keep any private account, sir."

"You don't?" in surprise.

"No, sir. What's the use? My salary is five hundred dollars a year,
and wouldn't be any more nor less if I kept an account of every half
cent of it."

"Humph!"

The merchant said no more. His mind was made up about his clerk. The
fact that he spent five hundred dollars a year, and kept no
private account, was enough for him.

"He'll never be any good to himself nor anybody else. Spend his whole
salary--humph! Keep no private account--humph!"

This was the opinion held of Jacob Jones by his employer from that
day. The reason why he had inquired as to how much money he had saved,
was this. He had a nephew, a poor young man, who, like Jacob, was a
clerk, and showed a good deal of ability for business. His salary was
rather more than what Jacob received, and, like Jacob, he spent it
all; but not on himself. He supported, mainly, his mother and a
younger brother and sister. A good chance for a small, but safe
beginning, was seen by the uncle, which would require only about a
thousand dollars as an investment. In his opinion it would be just
the thing for Jacob and the nephew. Supposing that Jacob had four or
five hundred dollars laid by, it was his intention, if he approved of
the thing, to furnish his nephew with a like sum, in order to join him
and enter into business. But the acknowledgment of Jacob that he had
not saved a dollar, and that he kept no private account, settled the
matter in the merchant's mind, as far as he was concerned.

About a month afterward, Jacob met his employer's nephew, who said,

"I am going into business."

"You are?"

"Yes."

"What are you going to do?"

"Open a commission store."

"Ah! Can you get any good consignments?"

"I am to have the agency for a new mill, which has just commenced
operations, beside consignments of goods from several small concerns
at the East."

"You will have to make advances."

"To no great extent. My