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 looked 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 wished 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 depot 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.'"