In spite, however, of all the industry both of mother and son, the gains of the shop were but scanty; to increase them capital was required, and all Mr.Moses Brown's capital lay in his brain.

"It is a bad foundation," said the mother, with a sigh.

"Not at all!" said the son, and leaving the shop, he turned broker.

Now a broker is a man who makes an income out of other people's funds,--a gleaner of stray extravagances; and by doing the public the honour of living upon them may fairly be termed a little sort of state minister in his way.
What with haunting sales, hawking china, selling the curiosities of one old lady and purchasing the same for another, Mr.Brown managed to enjoy a very comfortable existence.

Great pains and small gains will at last invert their antithesis, and make little trouble and great profit; so that by the time Mr.Brown had attained his fortieth year, the petty shop had become a large warehouse; and, if the worthy Moses, now christianized into Morris, was not so sanguine as his father in the gathering of plums, he had been at least as fortunate in the collecting of windfalls.