A few days after James had examined the bill, a clerk from the house which had sent it, called for settlement.  The lad, who was present, waited with interest to see whether Mr. Carman would speak of the error.  But he made no remark.  A check for the amount of the bill as rendered, was filled up, and a receipt taken.

“Is that right?” James asked himself this question.  His conscience said no.  The fact that Mr. Carman had so acted, bewildered his mind.

“It may be the way in business”—­he thought to himself—­“but it doesn’t look honest.  I wouldn’t have believed it of him.”

Mr. Carman had a way with him that won the boy’s heart, and naturally tended to make him judge of whatever he might do in a most favorable manner.

“I wish he had corrected that error,” he said to himself a great many times when congratulating himself upon his own good fortune in having been received into Mr. Carman’s employment.  “It doesn’t look right, but it may be in the way of business.”

One day he went to the bank and drew the money for a check.  In counting it over, he found that the teller had paid him fifty dollars too much.  So he went back to the counter and told him of his mistake.  The teller thanked him, and he returned to the store with the consciousness in his mind of having done right.

“The teller overpaid me fifty dollars,” he said to Mr. Carman, as he handed him the money.

“Indeed,” replied the latter, a light breaking over his countenance; and he hastily counted the bank bills.

The light faded as the last bill left his fingers.  “There’s no mistake, James.”  A tone of disappointment was in his voice.

“Oh, I gave them back the fifty dollars.  Wasn’t that right?”

“You simpleton!” exclaimed Mr. Carman.

[Illustration:  “The teller over-paid me fifty dollars.”]

“Don’t you know that bank mistakes are never corrected?  If the teller had paid you fifty dollars short he would not have made it right.”

[Illustration:  “You simpleton.”]

The warm blood mantled the cheek of James under this reproof.  It is often the case that more shame is felt for a blunder than for a crime.  In this instance the lad felt a sort of mortification at having done what Mr. Carman was pleased to call a silly thing, and he made up his mind that if they should ever over-pay him a thousand dollars at the bank, he should bring the amount to his employer, and let him do as he pleased with the money.

“Let people look out for their own mistakes,” said Mr. Carman.

James Lewis pondered these things in his heart.  The impression they made was too strong ever to be forgotten.  “It may be right,” he said, but he did not feel altogether satisfied.

[Illustration:  “He had been paid a half dollar too much.”]

A month or two after this last occurrence, as James counted over his weekly wages, just received from Mr. Carman, he saw that he had been paid a half dollar too much.