the hope of improving your own condition—­which is the mainspring of all your business operations—­be taken away, and instead, let there be only the desire to pay off old debts through great labour and self-denial, that must continue for years, and imagine how differently you would think and feel from what you do now.  Nay, more; let the debt be owed to those who are worth their thousands and tens of a thousands, and who are in the enjoyment of every luxury and comfort they could desire, while you go on paying them what you owe, by over-exertion and the denial to yourself and family of all those little luxuries and recreations which both so much need, and then say how deeply dyed would be that dishonesty which would cause you, in a moment of darker and deeper discouragement than usual, to throw the crushing weight from your shoulders, and resolve to bear it no longer?  You must leave a man some hope in life if you would keep him active and industrious in his sphere.”

Mr. Petron said nothing in reply to this; but he looked sober.  His friend soon after left.

The merchant, as the reader may infer from his own acknowledgment, was one of those men whose tendency to regard only their own interests has become so confirmed a habit, that they can see nothing beyond the narrow circle of self.  Upon debtors he had never looked with a particle of sympathy; and had, in all cases, exacted his own as rigidly as if his debtor had not been a creature of human wants and feelings.  What had just been said, however, awakened a new thought in his mind; and, as he reflected upon the subject, he saw that there was some reason in what had been said, and felt half ashamed of his allusion to the interest of the tailor’s fifty-dollar debt.

Not long after, a person came into his store, and from some cause mentioned the name of Moale.

“He’s an honest man—­that I am ready to say of him,” remarked Mr. Petron.

“Honest, but very poor,” was replied.

“He’s doing well now, I believe,” said the merchant.

“He’s managing to keep soul and body together, and hardly that.”

“He’s paying off his old debts.”

“I know he is; but I blame him for injuring his health and wronging his family, in order to pay a few hundred dollars to men a thousand times better off in the world than he is.  He brought me twenty dollars on an old debt yesterday, but I wouldn’t touch it.  His misfortunes had long ago cancelled the obligation in my eyes.  God forbid! that with enough to spare, I should take the bread out of the mouths of a poor man’s children.”

“Is he so very poor?” asked Mr. Petron, surprised and rebuked at what he heard.