THOUGHT IT MADE NO DIFFERENCE.
`That tenon does not fit the mortise by a quarter of an inch,' said an employer to a young carpenter who had just begun to work for him. `I thought that for a garden gate you would not be particular, and it would make no difference,' answered the young man. But it did make a difference. It made just the difference between the young man having a steady summer job at good wages, and having his time unoccupied upon his hands. The employer found no further fault; but when the gate was finished, he paid the maker, without a word, and dismissed him. The next day there was another man in his place. He happened to be a man who thought it did make a difference how everything was done; he always did his best, and he kept his situation till the end of the season. So it happens. Frequently some little thing which was not expected to attract attention is noticed by some one to whom the excellence of the work has commended itself, and the man who has made painstaking the rule of all his labor, is surprised by a sudden and unlooked-for accession of good fortune. He has been brought into notice by some unconsidered trifle, which was well done, merely because it was his habit to do everything as well as possible. On the other hand, many a man who is lamenting his ill-fortune, and doesn't know what to attribute it to, owes it to some such carelessness in the way of doing his work as that which doomed the young carpenter to a summer of profitless idleness. Men are by no means always told by what particular act they are judged; but any good performance is always liable to make, and any bad performance is always liable to mar, a fortune.