Used Up
by
I am tempted to believe, that few–very few men can start in the world–say at twenty, with a replete invoice of honesty, free and easy–kind, generous–good-natured disposition, and keep it up, until they greet their fortieth year. There are, doubtless, plenty of men–I hope there are, who would be entirely and perfectly generous-hearted, if they could, with any degree of consistency; and I know there are multitudes who wouldn’t exhibit an honorable or manly trait, of any human description, if they could. That class thrive best, it appears to me–if the accumulation of dollars and dimes be Webster, Walker, or Scriptural interpretation of that sense–in this sublunary world. Meanness and dishonesty win what good nature and honesty lose, hence the more thrift to the former, and the less gain, pecuniarily considered, to the latter. The subject is very prolific, and as my present purpose is as much to point a humorous sketch as to adorn a moral, I needs must cut speculative philosophistics for facts, in the case of my friend John Jenks, an emphatic–“used up” good fellow.
Jenks started in this world with a first-rate opinion of himself and the rest of mankind. No man ever started with a larger capital of good nature, human benevolence, and common honesty, than honest John. Few men ever started with better general prospects, for “a good time,” and plenty of it, than Jenks. He graduated with honor to himself and the Institute of his native State, and with but little knowledge beyond the college library and the social circles of his immediate friends. At twenty-three, John Jenks went into business on his own hook.
Of course John soon formed various and many business acquaintances; he learned that men were brothers–should love, honor, and respect one another, from precepts set him at his father’s fireside. He formed the opinion, that this brotherhood was not to be alienated in matters of business, for he never refused to act kindly to all; he freely loaned his autograph and purse to his business acquaintances; but, being backed up by a snug business capital, he seldom felt the necessity of claiming like accommodation, or he would have gotten his eye teeth cut cheaper and sooner.
“Jenks,” said a business man, stopping in at Jenks’ counting room one September morning, “Perkins & Ball, I see, have stopped –gone to smash!”
“Have they?” quickly responded Jenks.
“They have, and a good many fingers will be burnt by them,” replied the informant. “By the way, Barclay says you have some of their paper on hand; is it true?” continued the man.
“I have some, not much,” answered Jenks–“not enough at all events to create any alarm as to their willingness or ability to take it up.”
But in looking over his “accounts,” Jenks found a considerably larger amount of Perkins & Ball’s paper on hand, than an experienced business man might have contemplated with entire Christian resignation. The gazette, in the course of a few days, gave publicity to the smash of the house of Perkins, Ball & Co. There was a buzz “on ‘change;” those losers by the smash were bitter in their denunciatory remarks, while those gaining by the transaction snickered in their sleeves and kept mum. Jenks heard all, and said nothing. He reasoned, that if the firm were smashed by imprudences, or through dishonest motives, they were getting “an elegant sufficiency” of public and private vituperation, without his aid. Though far from his thoughts of entering into such “lists,” and inclined to hold on and see how things come out–Jenks, for the credit of common humanity, seldom recapitulated the amount, by discounting, &c.–he; was likely to be
in for, if P. & B. were really “done gone.” This resolve, like some rules, worked both ways.