“Oh no—that of course is expected; furniture, you know, becomes old-fashioned and requires to be renewed about every three years, and therefore one may as well have the use of it while it is new.”
“You must have a vast addition to your fortune if you expect to pay for all these things.”
“My dear sir,” replied the nephew, with a most benignant smile at his uncle’s superlative ignorance of his affairs, “my dear sir, you do not seem to know that, in the course of about three years, I shall be one of the richest men in New York.”
“Do you sell on credit?” asked the old man, significantly.
“Certainly; everybody does so now.”
“Well, then, my boy, take an old man’s advice, and don’t count your chickens before they are hatched; don’t live on ten thousand a year when that sum exists only in your ledger. Call in your debts, and when your customers have paid, then tell me how much you have gained.”
“My dear uncle, you are quite obsolete in your notions. I wish I could induce you to enter with me into a new scheme; it would make your fortune.”
“I am content with my present condition, Charles; my salary of eight hundred a year is quite sufficient for the wants of a bachelor, and leaves me a little for the wants of others; nor would I sacrifice my peace of mind and quiet of conscience for all the fortunes that will ever be made by speculation.”
“It is not necessary to sacrifice either peace or principle in making a fortune, uncle.”
“You have not seen the end yet, my dear boy; I have lived long enough to behold several kinds of speculative mania, and all terminated in a similarly unfortunate manner. It is a spirit of gambling which is abroad, and I am old-fashioned enough to believe that money thus obtained never does good to any one. It is like the price of a soul: the devil is sure to cheat the unhappy bargainer.”