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A SHREWD Yankee, with about five hundred dollars in his pocket, came along down South, a few years ago, seeking for some better investment of his money than offered in the land of steady habits, where he found people, as a general thing, quite as wide awake as himself.

In Philadelphia, our adventurer did not stay long; but something in the air of Baltimore pleased him, and he lingered about there for several weeks, prying into every thing and getting acquainted with everybody that was accessible. Among others for whom the Yankee seemed to take a liking, was a Dutchman, who was engaged in manufacturing an article for which there was a very good demand, and on which there was a tempting profit. He used to drop in almost every day and have a talk with the Dutchman, who seemed like a good, easy kind of a man, and just the game for the Yankee, if he should think it worth the candle.

“Why don’t you enlarge your business?” asked Jonathan, one day. “You can sell five times what you make.”

“I knows dat,” returned the Dutchman, “but I wants de monish. Wait a while, den I enlarsh.”

“Then you are laying by something?”

“Leetle mite.”

In two or three days, Jonathan came round again. He had thought the matter all over, and was prepared to invest his five hundred dollars in the Dutchman’s business, provided the latter had no objections.

“It’s a pity to creep along in the way you are going,” he said, “when so much money might be made in your business by the investment of more capital. Can’t you borrow a few hundred dollars?”

“Me borrow? Oh, no; nobody lend me few hunnard dollar. I go on, save up; bimeby I enlarsh.”

“But somebody else, with plenty of money, might go into the business and fill the market; then it would be no use to enlarge.”

“Sorry, but can’t help it. No monish, no enlarsh.”

“I’ve got five hundred dollars.”

The phlegmatic Dutchman brightened up.

“Fife hunnard dollar?”

“Yes.”

“Much monish. Do great business on fife hunnard dollar.”

“That you could.”

“You lend me de monish?” asked the Dutchman.

Jonathan shook his head.

“Can’t do that. I’m going into business myself.”

“Ah! what business?”

“Don’t know yet; haven’t decided. Into your business, maybe.”

“My business!” The Dutchman looked surprised.

“Yes; it appears to me like a very good business. Don’t you think I could start very fair on five hundred dollars?”

The Dutchman hesitated to answer that question; he didn’t want to say yes, and he was conscious that the Yankee knew too much of his affairs to believe him if he said no. He, therefore, merely shrugged his shoulders, looked stupid, and remained silent.

“You don’t know of a large room that I could get anywhere, do you?”

The Dutchman shook his head, and gave a decided negative.

Jonathan said no more on that occasion. Two days afterwards, he dropped in again. “Have you fount a room yet?” asked the Dutchman.

“I’ve seen two or three,” replied Jonathan. “One of them will suit me, I guess. But I’ll tell you what I’ve been thinking about since I saw you. If I open another establishment, the business will be divided. Now, it has struck me, that, perhaps, it might be better, all round, for me to put my five hundred dollars into your business as a partner, and push the whole thing with might and main. How does it strike you?”

“Vell, I can’t say shust now; I’ll dink of him. You put in fife hunnard dollar, you say?”

“Yes; five hundred down, in hard cash–every dollar in gold.”

“Fife hunnard. Let us see.” And the Dutchman raised his chin and dropped his eyes, and stood for some minutes in a deep study.

“Fife hunnard,” he repeated several times.

“Come to-morrow,” he at length said. “Den I tell you.”

“Very well. I’ll drop in to-morrow,” replied the Yankee. “I’m not very anxious about it, you see; but, as the thing occurred to me, I thought I would mention it. Five hundred dollars will make a great difference in your business.”