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Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848
JACOB JONES.
OR THE MAN WHO COULDN'T GET ALONG IN THE WORLD.
BY T. S. ARTHUR
Jacob Jones was clerk in a commission store at a salary of five hundred dollars a year. He was just twenty-two, and had been receiving this salary for two years. Jacob had no one to care for but himself; but, somehow or other, it happened that he did not lay up any money, but, instead, usually had from fifty to one hundred dollars standing against him on the books of his tailors.
"How much money have you laid by, Jacob?" said one day the merchant who employed him. This question came upon Jacob rather suddenly; and coming from the source that it did, was not an agreeable one – for the merchant was a very careful and economical man.
"I havn't laid by any thing yet," replied Jacob, with a slight air of embarrassment.
"You havn't!" said the merchant, in surprise. "Why what have you done with your money?"
"I've spent it, somehow or other."
"It must have been somehow or other, I should think, or somehow else," returned the employer, half seriously, and half playfully. "But really, Jacob, you are a very thoughtless young man to waste your money."
"I don't think I waste my money," said Jacob.
"What, then, have you done with it?" asked the merchant.
"It costs me the whole amount of my salary to live."
The merchant shook his head.