A GOOD LESSON | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 23, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 37.

A GOOD LESSON.

Most young people are very fond of display in dress. Rings, breastpins, and similar superfluities are in great demand among them. We have known a girl to spend a month's wages for a single article of this kind, and a young man to run in debt for a cane when he had scarcely clothing enough to appear respectable. The following story of a successful merchant will show to such how these things look to sensible people. Said he:—

"I was seventeen years old when I left the country store where I had 'tended' for three years, and came to Boston in search of a place. Anxious, of course, to appear to the best advantage, I spent an unusual amount of time and solicitude upon my toilet, and when it was completed, I surveyed my reflection in the glass with no little satisfaction, glancing lastly and approvingly upon a seal ring which embellished my little finger, and my cane, a very pretty affair, which I had purchased with direct reference to this occasion. My first day's experience was not encouraging. I traveled street after street, up one side and down the other, without success. I fancied, toward the last, that the clerks all knew my business the moment I opened the door, and that they winked ill-naturedly at my discomfiture as I passed out. But nature endowed me with a good degree of persistency, and the next day I started again. Toward noon I entered a store where an elderly gentleman was talking with a lady near by the door. I waited until the visitor had left, and then stated my errand.

" 'No, sir,' was the answer, given in a crisp and decided manner. Possibly I began to look the discouragement I was beginning to feel, for he added in a kindlier tone, 'Are you good at taking a hint?'

" 'I don't know,' I answered, and my face flushed painfully.

" 'What I wish to say is this,' said he, looking me in the face and smiling at my embarrassment, 'If I were in want of a clerk, I would not engage a young man who came seeking employment with a flashy ring upon his finger, and swinging a cane.'

"For a moment mortified vanity struggled against common sense, but sense got the victory, and I replied with rather shaky voice, 'I'm very much obliged to you,' and then beat a hasty retreat. As soon as I got out of sight, I slipped the ring into my pocket, and, walking rapidly to the Worcester station, I left the cane in charge of the baggage master 'until called for.' It is there now, for aught I know. At any rate, I never called for it. That afternoon I obtained a situation with the firm of which I am now a partner. How much my unfortunate finery had injured my prospects on the previous day I shall never know, but I never think of the old gentleman and his plain dealing with me without always feeling, as I told him at the time, 'very much obliged' to him."—Selected.