Thus far I have treated only of the chances in wholesale mercantile establishments, such as deal in dry goods, hardware, and so forth. These, however, form only a small portion of the business enterprises in New York. There are banking houses, manufacturing concerns, publishing houses, insurance companies, and hosts of agents for anything and everything, not to mention the great number of retail stores, all of which employ clerical assistance, and in any one of which the country lad looking for work may suddenly find himself employed. It is a saying, as true as it is old, that it is the unexpected that happens.
I know a boy who had lived all his life in the city, whose parents were people of position and influence. He spent three weeks, working six hours a day, in calling upon every business man he knew, or whom his father knew, or to whom he could get letters of introduction, asking for work, and finally found it through a young fellow of his own age whom he had met casually during his previous summer vacation. So it may be with the country boy. The opening, when it does come, may be in the very opposite direction from that in which he is looking. If he is wise he will slip into it, however different it may be from what he wants. He will at least be earning money, and can keep up his search for what he does want until he finds it. If he is faithful and energetic he will gain the approval of his employers, and be able to take a city reference with him when he leaves for the "something better."
He may even find that there are unsuspected opportunities in the place that seemed so unpromising to him when he took it. A great deal depends upon the boy. Some boys will rise more quickly in one place than in another. The boy who is bound to rise will get to the top no matter where he finds himself. Few boys would take a position behind the counter in a retail store if they could get anything better, yet some clerks rise to be floor-walkers, and some floor-walkers rise to be buyers, and some buyers become partners and proprietors and amass great wealth.
I know one young man who had a good position in a wholesale hardware house, who gave it up to take a place at lower wages in a retail store. He argued that as the retail hardware business was not one which usually attracted energetic and ambitious young men he would meet with little competition from his fellow clerks. He was right. They knew only one side of hardware, the retail side. He knew hardware inside and out. He soon found that he knew more than the proprietor, and showed him how he could buy to better advantage. Then he said he thought he would go back to his old place, but his employer offered him an interest in the business, and he staid.