trade, will not in the end hesitate about committing a greater wrong, if he have a fair chance of escape from penalty.  In my young days, the motto of most business men, who were not very nice about the interests of others, was, ’Every man for himself and the Lord for us all.’ But the motto has become slightly changed in these times.  It now reads, ’Every man for himself, and the d——­l take the hindmost!’ I hear this too often unblushingly avowed, but see it much oftener acted out, all around me.  My young friend, if you wish to keep a clear conscience, adopt neither of these mottoes, but regard, in every transaction, the good of others as well as your own good.  And let me most seriously and earnestly warn you against making haste to be rich.  The least evil that can overtake you, in such an effort, will be the almost certain wreck of all your worldly hopes, some five or ten years hence, and your fall, so low, that to rise again will be almost impossible.”

This well-meant, but plainly uttered advice, more than half offended Lawrence.  He replied, coldly, that he thought he knew what he was about, and would try, at least, to “steer clear of the penitentiary.”

With shrewdness, tact, untiring industry, and a spirit that knew no discouragement, the young man pressed forward in business.  The warning of the merchant, if it did not repress his desire to get rich in haste, caused him to look more closely than he would otherwise have done into every transaction he was about to make.  This saved him from many serious losses.

The want of more capital soon began to be felt.  He saw good operations every day, that might be made if he had capital enough to enter into them.

“A man deserves no credit for getting rich, if he have capital enough to work with,” was a favourite remark.  “There is plenty of business to be done, and ways of making money in abundance, if the means are only at hand.”

One week, if he had only been in the possession of means, he would have purchased a cotton-factory; the next week become possessor of a ship, and entered into the East India trade; and, the next week after that, purchased an interest in a lead-mine on the Upper Mississippi.

Money, money, more money, was ever his cry, for he saw golden opportunities constantly passing unimproved.  A neighbour, to whom he was expressing his desire for the use of larger capital, said to him, one day—­

“I’ll tell you how you can get more money!”

“How?” was the eager question.

“Get into the direction of some bank, push through the notes of a business friend, in whom you have confidence, who will do the same for you in another bank of which he is one of the managers.  There are wheels within wheels in those moneyed institutions, from which the few and not the many reap the most benefit.  Connect yourself with as many as you can of them, and make the most of the opportunities such connections will afford.  You know Balmier?”