He made investigations into his business,
but was unable to find anything wrong.
"Are you aware that your clerk is a purchaser of property to a
considerable extent?" said a mercantile friend to him one day.
"My clerk! It cannot be. His income is only five hundred dollars a
year."
"He bought a piece of property for five thousand last week."
"Impossible!"
"I know it to be true. Are you aware that he was once a convict in
the State's Prison?"
"Oh yes. I took him from prison myself, and gave him a chance for
his life. I do not believe in hunting men down for a single crime,
the result of circumstances rather than a bad heart."
"A truly honest man, let me tell you," replied the merchant, "will
be honest in any and all circumstances. And a rogue will be a rogue,
place him where you will. The evil is radical, and must be cured
radically. Your reformed thief has robbed you, without doubt."
"I have reason to fear that he has been most ungrateful," replied
the kind-hearted man, who, with the harmlessness of the dove, did
not unite the wisdom of the serpent.
And so it proved. His clerk had robbed him of over twenty thousand
dollars in less than five years, and so sapped the foundations of
his prosperity, that he recovered with great difficulty.
"You told me, when in prison," said the wronged merchant to his
clerk, "that circumstances made you what you were.
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