"I don't know. For every effect there is an adequate cause. The cause of all this will be the saving of seventy-five dollars a year. This I have been doing for three years, and I hope to be able to do it for three or four years longer. Then the desired effect, in a capital of five hundred dollars, upon which to commence business, will be produced. Is it not so?" "Yes, I suppose it is. But it is one thing to commence business, and another thing to succeed in it. There are plenty of chances in favor of your losing every cent you have, and then being obliged to go back to journey-work, which will not be the most agreeable thing in the world. For my part, I would much rather enjoy what little I have as I go along, than stint and deny myself every thing comfortable for six or seven years, in order to set up business for myself, and then lose every dollar. It is not every man, I can tell you, who is fit to go into business, nor every man who can succeed, if he does. The fact is, there must be journeymen as well as master-workmen. As for me, I have no taste for going into business, and don't believe I should succeed if I did set up for myself. I expect to work journey-work all my life, and might just as well take my comfort as I go along." "I shall not attempt to dispute what you say about some men being born to be journeymen, and others to be master-workmen," replied the friend of Johnson, "for I am very well aware that the gifts of all are different; and that some men are so peculiarly constituted, that they would not succeed if they were to set up business for themselves. But the want of a business capacity, or inclination, is no reason at all why a journeyman mechanic should not save every cent he can." "What good will it do him? He is bound to be a poor worker all his life, and why should he deny himself the few comforts he has as he goes along, in order to lay by a hundred or two dollars?" "I am surprised to hear you ask such a question, Johnson. But I will answer it by saying, that he should do it for the very reason that I save my money; that is, to enable him to educate his children well, to lighten his own and his wife's toil, when they grow older, and to be able to obtain for his family more of the comforts of life than they now enjoy." "Don't exactly see how all this is to be achieved. Suppose he get together as much as five hundred dollars; and instead of risking it in business, he send his children to some expensive schools, hire help for his wife, and take some comfort as he goes along; how long do you suppose his five hundred dollars will last? But two years, and then he must come down again and be ten times as unhappy, for it is a much easier matter to get up than to go down."