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_ and purse to his business acquaintances; but, being backed up by a snug business capital, he seldom felt the necessity of claiming like accommodation, or he would have gotten his eye teeth cut cheaper and sooner. "Jenks," said a business man, stopping in at Jenks' counting room one September morning, "Perkins & Ball, I see, have _stopped_--gone to smash!" "Have they?" quickly responded Jenks. "They have, and a good many fingers will be burnt by them," replied the informant. "By the way, Barclay says you have some of their _paper_ on hand; is it true?" continued the man. "I have some, not much," answered Jenks--"not enough at all events to create any alarm as to their willingness or ability to take it up." But in looking over his "accounts," Jenks found a considerably larger amount of Perkins & Ball's _paper_ on hand, than an experienced business man might have contemplated with entire Christian resignation. The gazette, in the course of a few days, gave publicity to the _smash_ of the house of Perkins, Ball & Co. There was a buzz "on 'change;" those losers by the _smash_ were bitter in their denunciatory remarks, while those gaining by the transaction snickered in their sleeves and kept mum. Jenks heard all, and said nothing. He reasoned, that if the firm were _smashed_ by imprudences, or through dishonest motives, they were getting "an elegant sufficiency" of public and private vituperation, without his aid. Though far from his thoughts of entering into such "lists," and inclined to hold on and see how things come out--Jenks, for the credit of common humanity, seldom recapitulated the amount, by discounting, &c.--he was likely to be _in_ for, if P. & B. were really "done gone." This resolve, like some _rules_, worked both ways.