Joseph thanked me in the most unassuming manner, and I was asked to take care of his money, since I had promised to provide him with suitable clothing for his new occupation.
It will be unnecessary to relate how, step by step, this poor lad proceeded to win the confidence of myself and partner. The accounts were always correct to a penny, and whenever his salary became due he drew out of my hands no more than he absolutely wanted, even to a penny. At length he had saved a sufficient sum of money to be deposited in the bank.
It so happened that one of our chief customers, who carried on a successful business, required an active partner. This person was of eccentric habits and considerably advanced in years. Scrupulously just, he looked to every penny, and invariably discharged his workmen if they were not equally scrupulous in their dealings with him.
Aware of this peculiarity of temper, there was no person I could recommend but Joseph, and after overcoming the repugnance of my partner, who was unwilling to be deprived of so valuable an assistant, Joseph was duly received into the firm of Richard Fairbrothers & Co. Prosperity attended Joseph in this new undertaking, and never suffering a penny difference to appear in his transactions, he so completely won the confidence of his senior partner that he left him the whole of his business, as he expressed it in his will, "even to the very last penny."
NOT THE BEST WAY.
Alice and Eva were sitting together in the pleasant sitting-room, one engaged in reading and the other in arranging an almost countless variety of pieces of calico destined to form, at some future time, a quilt which might fitly have had written upon it the motto of our country, E pluribus unum—one composed of many. So completely was Eva surrounded by the bright stripes of cloth that, at a distance, one might have supposed her to be clothed in a garment very much like that which Joseph wore—a "coat of many colours." She was considering whether or not it would be a proof of good taste to place a red block next to a blue one when she happened to remember a piece of green chintz which some one had given her, and which, with the red calico, would form precisely the contrast she desired. But the chintz was, unfortunately, in her own room, and how she should rise to go after it without displacing the groups which had been formed so carefully was a problem which Eva was unable to solve. While she was puzzling over it her brother, two years younger than herself, came into the room. He was a bright-eyed, active boy who thought nothing too difficult when fun was in prospect, but, as we shall see, was not always as ready to exert himself in order to oblige others.
"Oh, Willie," Eva exclaimed as soon as she saw him, "I am so glad you've come! Won't you please go up stairs and get something for me?"
"Well, I guess you can go after it just as well as I can," was the unbrotherly reply. "You girls seem to think that all a boy is good for is to wait on you, and I think you might just as well learn to wait on yourselves."