Polite young man that—as soon as his chin vegetates, provided his dickey don't cut his throat, he'll be arter the gals, Dobbs thinks!

   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

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