“We can do almost any thing, if we try hard enough, Johnson.  We fail, because we give up trying.  My tobacco and cigars used to cost me just twice what yours cost you, and yet I made a resolution to abandon the use of the vile weed altogether, and what is better, have kept my resolution.  So, you see, the thing can be done.  All that is wanted, is sufficient firmness and perseverance.  I used to like a glass of ale, too, and a plate of oysters, but I saw that the expense was rather a serious matter, and that the indulgence did not do me a particle of good.  So I gave them up, also; and if you try hard enough, you can do it, too.”

“I don’t know—­perhaps I might; but somehow or other, it strikes me that seventy or eighty dollars a year, laid by in the Savings’ Bank, is rather a dear saving, if made at the expense of every comfort a poor man has.  What good is the money going to do?”

“A strange question, that, to ask, Johnson.  I will tell you what good it is going to do me.  I intend saving every cent I can possibly lay by, until I get five hundred dollars; and then I mean to set up my trade for myself, and become a master-workman.  After that, I hope to get along a little faster, and be able to send my children, who will be pretty well advanced by the time, to better schools.  I shall also be able, I hope, to get help for my wife, who will need assistance in the house.”

“All very well to talk about, but not so easily done,” replied Johnson.

“I don’t know.  For every effect there is an adequate cause.  The cause of all this will be the saving of seventy-five dollars a year.  This I have been doing for three years, and I hope to be able to do it for three or four years longer.  Then the desired effect, in a capital of five hundred dollars, upon which to commence business, will be produced.  Is it not so?”

“Yes, I suppose it is.  But it is one thing to commence business, and another thing to succeed in it.  There are plenty of chances in favor of your losing every cent you have, and then being obliged to go back to journey-work, which will not be the most agreeable thing in the world.  For my part, I would much rather enjoy what little I have as I go along, than stint and deny myself every thing comfortable for six or seven years, in order to set up business for myself, and then lose every dollar.  It is not every man, I can tell you, who is fit to go into business, nor every man who can succeed, if he does.  The fact is, there must be journeymen as well as master-workmen.  As for me, I have no taste for going into business, and don’t believe I should succeed if I did set up for myself.  I expect to work journey-work all my life, and might just as well take my comfort as I go along.”

“I shall not attempt to dispute what you say about some men being born to be journeymen, and others to be master-workmen,” replied the friend of Johnson, “for I am very well aware that the gifts of all are different; and that some men are so peculiarly constituted, that they would not succeed if they were to set up business for themselves.  But the want of a business capacity, or inclination, is no reason at all why a journeyman mechanic should not save every cent he can.”