"One dollar and a half."
"A dollar and a half! Why you offered it yourself for a dollar and a quarter."
"True, and I had better taken the price then, than a dollar and a half now," retorted Benjamin with a good deal of spirit.
The buyer got the truth into his head at last, paid the price of the book, and sneaked away, with the rebuke lying heavily on his heart.
Benjamin wrote of his industry at that time, as follows:
"My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. My original habits of frugality continuing, and my father having, among his instructions to me when a boy, frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, "Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men." I thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, which encouraged me; though I did not think that I should ever literally stand before kings,—which, however, has since happened; for I have stood before five, and even had the honor of sitting down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner."
It is not strange that such a young man should write such maxims as the following, in his riper years:
"Pride breakfasts with plenty, dines with poverty, and sups with infamy."
"It is as truly folly for the poor to ape the rich, as for the frog to swell in order to equal the ox."
"It is easier to suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it."