Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen | Page 3

of the furs,
their final market, was all gone over again and again. The two extra
months at sea gave him an insight into a great business and he had the
time to fletcherize his ideas. He thought about it--wrote about it in his
diary, for he was at the journal-age. Wolves, bears badgers, minks, and
muskrats, filled his dreams.
Arriving in Baltimore he was disappointed to learn that there were no
fur traders there. He started for New York.
Here he found work with a certain Robert Bowne, a Quaker, who
bought and sold furs.

Young Astor set himself to learn the business--every part of it. He was
always sitting on the curb at the door before the owner got around in
the morning, carrying a big key to open the warehouse. He was the last
to leave at night. He pounded furs with a stick, salted them, sorted them,
took them to the tanners, brought them home.
He worked, and as he worked, learned.
To secure the absolute confidence of a man, obey him. Only thus do
you get him to lay aside his weapons, be he friend or enemy.
Any dullard can be waited on and served, but to serve requires
judgment, skill, tact, patience and industry.
The qualities that make a youth a good servant are the basic ones for
mastership. Astor's alertness, willingness, loyalty, and ability to obey,
delivered his employer over into his hands.
Robert Bowne, the good old Quaker, insisted that Jacob should call him
Robert; and from boarding the young man with a near-by war widow
who took cheap boarders, Bowne took young Astor to his own house,
and raised his pay from two dollars a week to six.
Bowne had made an annual trip to Montreal for many years.
Montreal was the metropolis for furs. Bowne went to Montreal himself
because he did not know of any one he could trust to carry the message
to Garcia. Those who knew furs and had judgment were not honest, and
those who were honest did not know furs. Honest fools are really no
better than rogues, as far as practical purposes are concerned. Bowne
once found a man who was honest and also knew furs, but alas! he had
a passion for drink, and no prophet could foretell his ``periodic,'' until
after it occurred.
Young Astor had been with Bowne only a year. He spoke imperfect
English, but he did not drink nor gamble, and he knew furs and was
honest.

Bowne started him off for Canada with a belt full of gold; his only
weapon was a German flute that he carried in his hand. Bowne being a
Quaker did not believe in guns. Flutes were a little out of his line, too,
but he preferred them to flintlocks.
John Jacob Astor ascended the Hudson River to Albany, and then with
pack on his back, struck north, alone, through the forest for Lake
Champlain. As he approached an Indian settlement he played his flute.
The aborigines showed no disposition to give him the hook. He hired
Indians to paddle him up to the Canadian border. He reached Montreal.
The fur traders there knew Bowne as a very sharp buyer, and so had
their quills out on his approach. But young Astor was seemingly
indifferent. His manner was courteous and easy.
He got close to his man, and took his pick of the pelts at fair prices. He
expended all of his money, and even bought on credit, for there are men
who always have credit.
Young Astor found Indian nature to be simply human nature.
The savage was a man, and courtesy, gentleness and fairly good
flute-playing soothed his savage breast. Astor had beads and blankets, a
flute and a smile. The Indians carried his goods by relays and then
passed him on with guttural certificates as to character, to other red
men, and at last he reached New York without the loss of a pelt or the
dampening of his ardor.
Bowne was delighted. To young Astor it was nothing. He had in his
blood the success corpuscle. He might have remained with Bowne and
become a partner in the business, but Bowne had business limitations
and Astor had n't.
So after a three years' apprenticeship, Astor knew all that Bowne did
and all he himself could imagine besides. So he resigned.
In Seventeen Hundred and Eighty-six, John Jacob Astor began business
on his own account in a little store on Water Street, New York. There

was one room and a basement. He had saved a few hundred dollars; his
brother, the butcher, had loaned him a few hundred more, and Robert
Bowne had contributed a bale of skins to be paid for ``at thy own price
and thy own convenience.''
Astor had made