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diff --git a/12106-h/12106-h.htm b/12106-h/12106-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe4a3ec --- /dev/null +++ b/12106-h/12106-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6409 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> +<html lang="en"> +<head> +<meta content="HTML Tidy for Mac OS X (vers 1st March 2003), see www.w3.org" name="generator"> +<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> +<title> +"The Project Gutenberg eBook of Old Gorgon Graham, More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son, by George Horace Lorimer +</title> +<style type="text/css"> + + body {margin-left: 3em; + margin-right: 3em;} + + p {text-indent: 1em; + text-align: justify;} + + .noindent {text-indent: 0em; + text-align: justify;} + + .indent {margin-left: 2em; + margin-right: 3em; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: -.7em; + margin-bottom: .5em;} + + .addindent {margin-left: 2em; + margin-right: 3em; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-bottom: 2em;} + + .roman {text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; + margin-bottom: -.5em;} + + .caption {text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 2em;} + + .ctr {text-align: center;} + + .chapter {text-align: center; + margin-top: 3em; + font-weight: bold;} + + .quote {text-indent: 0em; + margin-left: 4em; + margin-right: 4em; + text-align: justify;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em;} + + hr {text-align: center; width: 80%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + + div.img {text-align: center; + border: none; + max-width: 100%; + margin-top: 2em;} + + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none;} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none;} + a:hover {color:red;} + + // --></style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Gorgon Graham, by George Horace Lorimer + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Old Gorgon Graham + More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son + +Author: George Horace Lorimer + +Release Date: April 21, 2004 [EBook #12106] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD GORGON GRAHAM *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Beth Trapaga and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + + + +<h1> +OLD GORGON GRAHAM +</h1> + +<h2> +More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son +</h2> + +<h3> +<i>by</i><br>George Horace Lorimer +</h3> + + +<h4> +<i>With pictures by F.R. Gruger and Martin Justice</i> +</h4> + + +<h4> +1903 +</h4> + + +<h3> +FROM A SON<br>TO HIS FATHER +</h3> + + + +<hr> + +<h4> +CONTENTS +</h4> + + +<p class="roman"><a href="#CHI">I.</a></p> +<p class="noindent">From John Graham, head of the house of Graham & Company, pork +packers, in Chicago, familiarly known on 'Change as Old Gorgon Graham, +to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards.</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>The old man is laid up temporarily for repairs, and Pierrepont +has written asking if his father doesn't feel that he is qualified +now to relieve him of some of the burden of active management</i> +</p> + +<p class="roman"><a href="#CHII">II.</a></p> +<p class="noindent">From John Graham, at the Schweitzerkasenhof, Carlsbad, to his +son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago.</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>The head of the lard department has died suddenly, and +Pierrepont has suggested to the old man that there is a silver +lining to that cloud of sorrow</i> +</p> + +<p class="roman"><a href="#CHIII">III.</a></p> +<p class="noindent">From John Graham, at the Schweitzerkasenhof, +Carlsbad, to his son, Pierrepont, at +the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. +</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>A friend of the young man has just presented a letter of +introduction to the old man, and has exchanged a large bunch of +stories for a small roll of bills</i> +</p> + +<p class="roman"><a href="#CHIV">IV.</a></p> +<p class="noindent">From John Graham, at the Hotel Cecil, London, to his son, +Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. +</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>The old man has just finished going through the young man's +first report as manager of the lard department, and he finds it +suspiciously good</i> +</p> + +<p class="roman"><a href="#CHV">V.</a></p> +<p class="noindent">From John Graham, at the Waldorf-Astoria, New York, to his son, +Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. +</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>The young man has hinted vaguely of a quarrel between himself +and Helen Heath, who is in New York with her mother, and has +suggested that the old man act as peacemaker</i> +</p> + +<p class="roman"><a href="#CHVI">VI.</a></p> +<p class="noindent">From John Graham, at the Waldorf-Astoria, New York, to his son, +Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. +</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>The young man has written describing the magnificent wedding +presents that are being received, and hinting discreetly that it +would not come amiss if he knew what shape the old man's was +going to take, as he needs the money</i> +</p> + +<p class="roman"><a href="#CHVII">VII.</a></p> +<p class="noindent">From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, +Pierrepont, at Yemassee-on-the-Tallahassee. +</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>The young man is now in the third quarter of the honeymoon, and +the old man has decided that it is time to bring him fluttering +down to earth</i> +</p> + +<p class="roman"><a href="#CHVIII">VIII.</a></p> +<p class="noindent">From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, +Pierrepont, at Yemassee-on-the-Tallahassee. +</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>In replying to his father's hint that it is time to turn his +thoughts from love to lard, the young man has quoted a French +sentence, and the old man has been both pained and puzzled by +it</i> +</p> + +<p class="roman"><a href="#CHIX">IX.</a></p> +<p class="noindent">From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, +Pierrepont, care of Graham & Company's brokers, Atlanta. +</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Following the old man's suggestion, the young man has rounded +out the honeymoon into a harvest moon, and is sending in some +very satisfactory orders to the house</i> +</p> + +<p class="roman"><a href="#CHX">X.</a></p> +<p class="noindent">From John Graham, at Mount Clematis, Michigan, to his son, +Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. +</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>The young man has done famously during the first year of his +married life, and the old man has decided to give him a more +important position</i> +</p> + +<p class="roman"><a href="#CHXI">XI.</a></p> +<p class="noindent">From John Graham, at Mount Clematis, Michigan, to his son, +Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. +</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>The young man has sent the old man a dose of his own medicine, +advice, and he is proving himself a good doctor by taking it</i> +</p> + +<p class="roman"><a href="#CHXII">XII.</a></p> +<p class="noindent">From John Graham, at Magnolia Villa, on the Florida Coast, to his +son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. +</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>The old man has started back to Nature, but he hasn't gone +quite far enough to lose sight of his business altogether</i> +</p> + +<p class="roman"><a href="#CHXIII">XIII.</a></p> +<p class="noindent">From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, +Pierrepont, care of Graham & Company, Denver. +</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>The young man has been offered a large interest in a big thing +at a small price, and he has written asking the old man to lend +him the price</i> +</p> + +<p class="roman"><a href="#CHXIV">XIV.</a></p> +<p class="noindent">From John Graham, at the Omaha branch of Graham & Company, to his +son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. +</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>The old man has been advised by wire of the arrival of a +prospective partner, and that the mother, the son, and the +business are all doing well</i> +</p> + +<hr> + + +<a name="CHI"></a><p class="ctr"> +No. 1 +</p> + +<p class="addindent"> +From John Graham, head of the house of Graham & Company, pork packers, +in Chicago, familiarly known on 'Change as Old Gorgon Graham, to his +son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards. The old man is laid up +temporarily for repairs, and Pierrepont has written asking if his +father doesn't feel that he is qualified now to relieve him of some of +the burden of active management. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I +</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> +CARLSBAD, October 4, 189-. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Dear Pierrepont</i>: I'm sorry you ask so many questions that you +haven't a right to ask, because you put yourself in the position of +the inquisitive bull-pup who started out to smell the third rail on +the trolley right-of-way—you're going to be full of information in a +minute. +</p> + +<p> +In the first place, it looks as if business might be pretty good this +fall, and I'm afraid you'll have your hands so full in your place as +assistant manager of the lard department that you won't have time to +run my job, too. +</p> + +<p> +Then I don't propose to break any quick-promotion records with you, +just because you happened to be born into a job with the house. A fond +father and a fool son hitch up into a bad team, and a good business +makes a poor family carryall. Out of business hours I like you better +than any one at the office, but in them there are about twenty men +ahead of you in my affections. The way for you to get first place is +by racing fair and square, and not by using your old daddy as a +spring-board from which to jump over their heads. A man's son is +entitled to a chance in his business, but not to a cinch. +</p> + +<p> +It's been my experience that when an office begins to look like a +family tree, you'll find worms tucked away snug and cheerful in most +of the apples. A fellow with an office full of relatives is like a sow +with a litter of pigs—apt to get a little thin and peaked as the +others fat up. A receiver is next of kin to a business man's +relatives, and after they are all nicely settled in the office they're +not long in finding a job for him there, too. I want you to get this +firmly fixed in your mind, because while you haven't many relatives to +hire, if you ever get to be the head of the house, you'll no doubt +marry a few with your wife. +</p> + +<p> +For every man that the Lord makes smart enough to help himself, He +makes two who have to be helped. When your two come to you for jobs, +pay them good salaries to keep out of the office. Blood is thicker +than water, I know, but when it's the blood of your wife's second +cousin out of a job, it's apt to be thicker than molasses—and +stickier than glue when it touches a good thing. After you have found +ninety-nine sound reasons for hiring a man, it's all right to let his +relationship to you be the hundredth. It'll be the only bad reason in +the bunch. +</p> + +<p> +I simply mention this in passing, because, as I have said, you ain't +likely to be hiring men for a little while yet. But so long as the +subject is up, I might as well add that when I retire it will be to +the cemetery. And I should advise you to anchor me there with a pretty +heavy monument, because it wouldn't take more than two such statements +of manufacturing cost as I have just received from your department to +bring me back from the graveyard to the Stock Yards on the jump. And +until I do retire you don't want to play too far from first base. The +man at the bat will always strike himself out quick enough if he has +forgotten how to find the pitcher's curves, so you needn't worry about +that. But you want to be ready all the time in case he should bat a +few hot ones in your direction. +</p> + +<p> +Some men are like oak leaves—they don't know when they're dead, but +still hang right on; and there are others who let go before anything +has really touched them. Of course, I may be in the first class, but +you can be dead sure that I don't propose to get into the second, even +though I know a lot of people say I'm an old hog to keep right along +working after I've made more money than I know how to spend, and more +than I could spend if I knew how. It's a mighty curious thing how many +people think that if a man isn't spending his money their way he isn't +spending it right, and that if he isn't enjoying himself according to +their tastes he can't be having a good time. They believe that money +ought to loaf; I believe that it ought to work. They believe that +money ought to go to the races and drink champagne; I believe that it +ought to go to the office and keep sober. +</p> + +<p> +When a man makes a specialty of knowing how some other fellow ought to +spend his money, he usually thinks in millions and works for hundreds. +There's only one poorer hand at figures than these over-the-left +financiers, and he's the fellow who inherits the old man's dollars +without his sense. When a fortune comes without calling, it's apt to +leave without asking. Inheriting money is like being the second +husband of a Chicago grass-widow—mighty uncertain business, unless a +fellow has had a heap of experience. There's no use explaining when +I'm asked why I keep on working, because fellows who could put that +question wouldn't understand the answer. You could take these men and +soak their heads overnight in a pailful of ideas, and they wouldn't +absorb anything but the few loose cuss-words that you'd mixed in for +flavoring. They think that the old boys have corralled all the chances +and have tied up the youngsters where they can't get at them; when the +truth is that if we all simply quit work and left them the whole range +to graze over, they'd bray to have their fodder brought to them in +bales, instead of starting out to hunt the raw material, as we had to. +When an ass gets the run of the pasture he finds thistles. +</p> + +<p> +I don't mind owning up to you, though, that I don't hang on because +I'm indispensable to the business, but because business is +indispensable to me. I don't take much stock in this indispensable man +idea, anyway. I've never had one working for me, and if I had I'd fire +him, because a fellow who's as smart as that ought to be in business +for himself; and if he doesn't get a chance to start a new one, he's +just naturally going to eat up yours. Any man can feel reasonably well +satisfied if he's sure that there's going to be a hole to look at when +he's pulled up by the roots. +</p> + +<p> +I started business in a shanty, and I've expanded it into half a mile +of factories; I began with ten men working for me, and I'll quit with +10,000; I found the American hog in a mud-puddle, without a beauty +spot on him except the curl in his tail, and I'm leaving him nicely +packed in fancy cans and cases, with gold medals hung all over him. +But after I've gone some other fellow will come along and add a +post-graduate course in pork packing, and make what I've done look +like a country school just after the teacher's been licked. And I want +you to be that fellow. For the present, I shall report at the office +as usual, because I don't know any other place where I can get ten +hours' fun a day, year in and year out. +</p> + +<p> +After forty years of close acquaintance with it, I've found that work +is kind to its friends and harsh to its enemies. It pays the fellow +who dislikes it his exact wages, and they're generally pretty small; +but it gives the man who shines up to it all the money he wants and +throws in a heap of fun and satisfaction for good measure. +</p> + +<p> +A broad-gauged merchant is a good deal like our friend Doc Graver, +who'd cut out the washerwoman's appendix for five dollars, but would +charge a thousand for showing me mine—he wants all the money that's +coming to him, but he really doesn't give a cuss how much it is, just +so he gets the appendix. +</p> + +<p> +I've never taken any special stock in this modern theory that no +fellow over forty should be given a job, or no man over sixty allowed +to keep one. Of course, there's a dead-line in business, just as there +is in preaching, and fifty's a good, convenient age at which to draw +it; but it's been my experience that there are a lot of dead ones on +both sides of it. When a man starts out to be a fool, and keeps on +working steady at his trade, he usually isn't going to be any Solomon +at sixty. But just because you see a lot of bald-headed sinners lined +up in the front row at the show, you don't want to get humorous with +every bald-headed man you meet, because the first one you tackle may +be a deacon. And because a fellow has failed once or twice, or a dozen +times, you don't want to set him down as a failure—unless he takes +failing too easy. No man's a failure till he's dead or loses his +courage, and that's the same thing. Sometimes a fellow that's been +batted all over the ring for nineteen rounds lands on the solar plexus +of the proposition he's tackling in the twentieth. But you can have a +regiment of good business qualities, and still fail without courage, +because he's the colonel, and he won't stand for any weakening at a +critical time. +</p> + +<p> +I learned a long while ago not to measure men with a foot-rule, and +not to hire them because they were young or old, or pretty or homely, +though there are certain general rules you want to keep in mind. If +you were spending a million a year without making money, and you hired +a young man, he'd be apt to turn in and double your expenses to make +the business show a profit, and he'd be a mighty good man; but if you +hired an old man, he'd probably cut your expenses to the bone and show +up the money saved on the profit side; and he'd be a mighty good man, +too. I hire both and then set the young man to spending and the old +man to watching expenses. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, the chances are that a man who hasn't got a good start at +forty hasn't got it in him, but you can't run a business on the law of +averages and have more than an average business. Once an old fellow +who's just missed everything he's sprung at gets his hooks in, he's a +tiger to stay by the meat course. And I've picked up two or three of +these old man-eaters in my time who are drawing pretty large salaries +with the house right now. +</p> + +<p> +Whenever I hear any of this talk about carting off old fellows to the +glue factory, I always think of Doc Hoover and the time they tried the +"dead-line-at-fifty" racket on him, though he was something over +eighty when it happened. +</p> + +<p> +After I left Missouri, Doc stayed right along, year after year, in the +old town, handing out hell to the sinners in public, on Sundays, and +distributing corn-meal and side-meat to them on the quiet, week-days. +He was a boss shepherd, you bet, and he didn't stand for any church rows +or such like nonsense among his sheep. When one of them got into trouble +the Doc was always on hand with his crook to pull him out, but let an old +ram try to start any stampede-and-follow-the-leader-over-the-precipice +foolishness, and he got the sharp end of the stick. +</p> + +<p> +There was one old billy-goat in the church, a grocer named Deacon +Wiggleford, who didn't really like the Elder's way of preaching. +Wanted him to soak the Amalekites in his sermons, and to leave the +grocery business alone. Would holler Amen! when the parson got after +the money-changers in the Temple, but would shut up and look sour when +he took a crack at the short-weight prune-sellers of the nineteenth +century. Said he "went to church to hear the simple Gospel preached," +and that may have been one of the reasons, but he didn't want it +applied, because there wasn't any place where the Doc could lay it on +without cutting him on the raw. The real trouble with the Deacon was +that he'd never really got grace, but only a pretty fair imitation. +</p> + +<p> +Well, one time after the Deacon got back from his fall trip North to +buy goods, he tried to worry the Doc by telling him that all the +ministers in Chicago were preaching that there wasn't any super-heated +hereafter, but that each man lived through his share of hell right +here on earth. Doc's face fell at first, but he cheered up mightily +after nosing it over for a moment, and allowed it might be so; in +fact, that he was sure it was so, as far as those fellows were +concerned—they lived in Chicago. And next Sunday he preached hell so +hot that the audience fairly sweat. +</p> + +<p> +He wound up his sermon by deploring the tendency to atheism which he +had noticed "among those merchants who had recently gone up with the +caravans to Babylon for spices" (this was just his high-toned way of +describing Deacon Wiggleford's trip to Chicago in a day-coach for +groceries), and hoped that the goods which they had brought back were +better than the theology. Of course, the old folks on the mourners' +bench looked around to see how the Deacon was taking it, and the +youngsters back on the gigglers' bench tittered, and everybody was +happy but the Deacon. He began laying for the Doc right there. And +without meaning to, it seems that I helped his little game along. +</p> + +<p> +Doc Hoover used to write me every now and then, allowing that hams +were scarcer in Missouri and more plentiful in my packing-house than +they had any right to be, if the balance of trade was to be +maintained. Said he had the demand and I had the supply, and he wanted +to know what I was going to do about it. I always shipped back a +tierce by fast freight, because I was afraid that if I tried to argue +the point he'd come himself and take a car-load. He made a specialty +of seeing that every one in town had enough food and enough religion, +and he wasn't to be trifled with when he discovered a shortage of +either. A mighty good salesman was lost when Doc got religion. +</p> + +<p> +Well, one day something more than ten years ago he wrote in, +threatening to make the usual raid on my smoke-house, and when I +answered, advising him that the goods were shipped, I inclosed a +little check and told him to spend it on a trip to the Holy Land which +I'd seen advertised. He backed and filled over going at first, but +finally the church took it out of his hands and arranged for a young +fellow not long out of the Theological Seminary to fill the pulpit, +and Doc put a couple of extra shirts in a grip and started off. I +heard the rest of the story from Si Perkins next fall, when he brought +on a couple of car-loads of steers to Chicago, and tried to stick me +half a cent more than the market for them on the strength of our +having come from the same town. +</p> + +<p> +It seems that the young man who took Doc's place was one of these +fellows with pink tea instead of red blood in his veins. Hadn't any +opinions except your opinions until he met some one else. Preached +pretty, fluffy little things, and used eau de Cologne on his language. +Never hit any nearer home than the unspeakable Turk, and then he was +scared to death till he found out that the dark-skinned fellow under +the gallery was an Armenian. (The Armenian left the church anyway, +because the unspeakable Turk hadn't been soaked hard enough to suit +him.) Didn't preach much from the Bible, but talked on the cussedness +of Robert Elsmere and the low-downness of Trilby. Was always wanting +everybody to lead the higher life, without ever really letting on what +it was, or at least so any one could lay hold of it by the tail. In +the end, I reckon he'd have worked around to Hoyle's games—just to +call attention to their wickedness, of course. +</p> + +<p> +The Pillars of the church, who'd been used to getting their religion +raw from Doc Hoover, didn't take to the bottle kindly, and they all +fell away except Deacon Wiggleford. He and the youngsters seemed to +cotton to the new man, and just before Doc Hoover was due to get back +they called a special meeting, and retired the old man with the title +of pastor emeritus. They voted him two donation parties a year as long +as he lived, and elected the Higher Lifer as the permanent pastor of +the church. Deacon Wiggleford suggested the pastor emeritus extra. He +didn't quite know what it meant, but he'd heard it in Chicago, and it +sounded pretty good, and as if it ought to be a heap of satisfaction +to a fellow who was being fired. Besides, it didn't cost anything, and +the Deacon was one of those Christians who think that you ought to be +able to save a man's immortal soul for two bits. +</p> + +<p> +The Pillars were mighty hot next day when they heard what had +happened, and were for calling another special meeting; but two or +three of them got together and decided that it was best to lay low and +avoid a row until the Doc got back. +</p> + +<p> +He struck town the next week with a jugful of water from the River +Jordan in one hand and a gripful of paper-weights made of wood from +the Mount of Olives in the other. He was chockful of the joy of having +been away and of the happiness of getting back, till they told him +about the Deacon's goings on, and then he went sort of gray and old, +and sat for a minute all humped up. +</p> + +<p> +Si Perkins, who was one of the unregenerate, but a mighty good friend +of the Doc's, was standing by, and he blurted right out: "You say the +word, Doc, and we'll make the young people's society ride this rooster +out of town on a rail." +</p> + +<div class="img"> +<img src="Images/02.jpg" alt=""We'll make the young people's society ride this rooster out of town on a rail"" width="355" height="235"></div> +<p class="caption">"We'll make the young people's society ride this +rooster out of town on a rail"</p> + + +<p> +That seemed to wake up the Elder a bit, for he shook his head and +said, "No nonsense now, you Si"; and then, as he thought it over, he +began to bristle and swell up; and when he stood it was to his full +six feet four, and it was all man. You could see that he was boss of +himself again, and when a man like old Doc Hoover is boss of himself +he comes pretty near being boss of every one around him. He sent word +to the Higher Lifer by one of the Pillars that he reckoned he was +counting on him to preach a farewell sermon the next Sunday, and the +young man, who'd been keeping in the background till whatever was +going to drop, dropped, came around to welcome him in person. But +while the Doc had been doing a heap of praying for grace, he didn't +propose to take any chances, and he didn't see him. And he wouldn't +talk to any one else, just smiled in an aggravating way, though +everybody except Deacon Wiggleford and the few youngsters who'd made +the trouble called to remonstrate against his paying any attention to +their foolishness. +</p> + +<p> +The whole town turned out the next Sunday to see the Doc step down. He +sat beside the Higher Lifer on the platform, and behind them were the +six deacons. When it came time to begin the services the Higher Lifer +started to get up, but the Doc was already on his feet, and he +whispered to him: +</p> + +<p> +"Set down, young man"; and the young man sat. The Doc had a way of +talking that didn't need a gun to back it up. +</p> + +<p> +The old man conducted the services right through, just as he always +did, except that when he'd remembered in his prayer every one in +America and had worked around through Europe to Asia Minor, he +lingered a trifle longer over the Turks than usual, and the list of +things which he seemed to think they needed brought the Armenian back +into the fold right then and there. +</p> + +<p> +By the time the Doc got around to preaching, Deacon Wiggleford was +looking like a fellow who'd bought a gold brick, and the Higher Lifer +like the brick. Everybody else felt and looked as if they were +attending the Doc's funeral, and, as usual, the only really calm and +composed member of the party was the corpse. +</p> + +<p> +"You will find the words of my text," Doc began, "in the revised +version of the works of William Shakespeare, in the book—I mean +play—of Romeo and Juliet, Act Two, Scene Two: 'Parting is such sweet +sorrow that I shall say good-night till it be morrow,'" and while the +audience was pulling itself together he laid out that text in four +heads, each with six subheads. Began on partings, and went on a still +hunt through history and religion for them. Made the audience part with +Julius Caesar with regret, and had 'em sniffling at saying good-by to +Napoleon and Jeff Davis. Made 'em feel that they'd lost their friends +and their money, and then foreclosed the mortgage on the old homestead +in a this-is-very-sad-but-I-need-the-money tone. In fact, when he had +finished with Parting and was ready to begin on Sweet Sorrow, he had +not only exhausted the subject, but left considerable of a deficit in +it. +</p> + +<p> +They say that the hour he spent on Sweet Sorrow laid over anything +that the town had ever seen for sadness. Put 'em through every stage +of grief from the snuffles to the snorts. Doc always was a pretty +noisy preacher, but he began work on that head with +soft-pedal-tremolo-stop preaching and wound up with a peroration like +a steamboat explosion. Started with his illustrations dying of +consumption and other peaceful diseases, and finished up with railroad +wrecks. He'd been at it two hours when he got through burying the +victims of his last illustration, and he was just ready to tackle his +third head with six subheads. But before he took the plunge he looked +at his watch and glanced up sort of surprised: +</p> + +<p> +"I find," he said, "that we have consumed more time with these +introductory remarks than I had intended. We would all, I know, like +to say good-by till to-morrow, did our dear young brother's plans +permit, but alas! he leaves us on the 2:17. Such is life; to-day we +are here, to-morrow we are in St. Louis, to which our young friend +must return. Usually, I don't approve of traveling on the Sabbath, but +in a case like this, where the reasons are very pressing, I will lay +aside my scruples, and with a committee of deacons which I have +appointed see our pastor emeritus safely off." +</p> + +<p> +The Doc then announced that he would preach a series of six Sunday +night sermons on the six best-selling books of the month, and +pronounced the benediction while the Higher Lifer and Deacon +Wiggleford were trying to get the floor. But the committee of deacons +had 'em by the coat-tails, and after listening to their soothing +arguments the Higher Lifer decided to take the 2:17 as per schedule. +When he saw the whole congregation crowding round the Doc, and the +women crying over him and wanting to take him home to dinner, he +understood that there'd been a mistake somewhere and that he was the +mistake. +</p> + +<p> +Of course the Doc never really preached on the six best-selling books. +That was the first and last time he ever found a text in anything but +the Bible. Si Perkins wanted to have Deacon Wiggleford before the +church on charges. Said he'd been told that this pastor emeritus +business was Latin, and it smelt of popery to him; but the Doc +wouldn't stand for any foolishness. Allowed that the special meeting +was illegal, and that settled it; and he reckoned they could leave the +Deacon's case to the Lord. But just the same, the small boys used to +worry Wiggleford considerably by going into his store and yelling: +"Mother says she doesn't want any more of those pastor emeritus eggs," +or, "She'll send it back if you give us any more of that dead-line +butter." +</p> + +<p> +If the Doc had laid down that Sunday, there'd probably have been a +whole lot of talk and tears over his leaving, but in the end, the +Higher Lifer or some other fellow would have had his job, and he'd +have become one of those nice old men for whom every one has a lot of +respect but no special use. But he kept right on, owning his pulpit +and preaching in it, until the Great Call was extended to him. +</p> + +<p> +I'm a good deal like the Doc—willing to preach a farewell sermon +whenever it seems really necessary, but some other fellow's. +</p> + +<p> +Your affectionate father, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +JOHN GRAHAM. +</p> + +<hr> + +<a name="CHII"></a><p class="ctr"> +No. 2 +</p> + +<p class="addindent"> +From John Graham, at the Schweitzerkasenhof, Carlsbad, to his son, +Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The head of the lard +department has died suddenly, and Pierrepont has suggested to the old +man that there is a silver lining to that cloud of sorrow. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +II +</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> +CARLSBAD, October 20, 189-. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Dear Pierrepont</i>: I've cabled the house that you will manage the lard +department, or try to, until I get back; but beyond that I can't see. +Four weeks doesn't give you much time to prove that you are the best +man in the shop for the place, but it gives you enough to prove that +you ain't. You've got plenty of rope. If you know how to use it you +can throw your steer and brand it; if you don't, I suppose I won't +find much more than a grease-spot where the lard department was, when +I get back to the office. I'm hopeful, but I'm a good deal like the +old deacon back in Missouri who thought that games of chance were +sinful, and so only bet on sure things—and I'm not betting. +</p> + +<p> +Naturally, when a young fellow steps up into a big position, it breeds +jealousy among those whom he's left behind and uneasiness among those +to whom he's pulled himself up. Between them he's likely to be +subjected to a lot of petty annoyances. But he's in the fix of a dog +with fleas who's chasing a rabbit—if he stops to snap at the tickling +on his tail, he's going to lose his game dinner. +</p> + +<p> +Even as temporary head of the lard department you're something of a +pup, and where there's dog there's fleas. You've simply got to get +used to them, and have sense enough to know that they're not eating +you up when they're only nibbling a little at your hide. And you don't +want to let any one see that a flea-bite can worry you, either. A pup +that's squirming and wriggling and nosing around the seat of the +trouble whenever one of his little friends gets busy, is kicked out +into the cold, sad night in the end. But a wise dog lies before the +fire with a droop in his ear and a dreamy look in his eyes until it +gets to the point where he can't stand 'em any longer. Then he sneaks +off under the dining-room table and rolls them out into the carpet. +</p> + +<p> +There are two breeds of little things in business—those that you +can't afford to miss and those that you can't afford to notice. The +first are the details of your own work and those of the men under you. +The second are the little tricks and traps that the envious set around +you. A trick is always so low that a high-stepper can walk right over +it. +</p> + +<p> +When a fellow comes from the outside to an important position with a +house he generally gets a breathing-space while the old men spar +around taking his measure and seeing if he sizes up to his job. They +give him the benefit of the doubt, and if he shows up strong and +shifty on his feet they're apt to let him alone. But there isn't any +doubt in your case; everybody's got you sized up, or thinks he has, +and those who've been over you will find it hard to accept you as an +equal, and those who've been your equals will be slow to regard you as +a superior. When you've been Bill to a man, it comes awkward for him +to call you mister. He may do it to your face, but you're always Bill +again when you've turned the corner. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, everybody's going to say you're an accident. Prove it. Show +that you're a regular head-on collision when anything gets in your +way. They're going to say that you've got a pull. Prove it—by taking +up all the slack that they give you. Back away from controversy, but +stand up stubborn as a mule to the fellow who's hunting trouble. I +believe in ruling by love, all right, but it's been my experience that +there are a lot of people in the world whom you've got to make +understand that you're ready to heave a brick if they don't come when +you call them. These men mistake kindness for weakness and courtesy +for cowardice. Of course, it's the exception when a fellow of this +breed can really hurt you, but the exception is the thing that you +always want to keep your eye skinned for in business. When it's good +growing weather and the average of the crop is ninety-five, you should +remember that old Satan may be down in Arizona cooking up a sizzler +for the cornbelt; or that off Cuba-ways, where things get excited +easy, something special in the line of tornadoes may be ghost-dancing +and making ready to come North to bust you into bits, if it catches +you too far away from the cyclone cellar. When a boy's face shines +with soap, look behind his ears. +</p> + +<p> +Up to this point you've been seeing business from the seat of the man +who takes orders; now you're going to find out what sort of a snap the +fellow who gives them has. You're not even exchanging one set of +worries for another, because a good boss has to carry all his own and +to share those of his men. He must see without spying; he must hear +without sneaking; he must know without asking. It takes a pretty good +guesser to be a boss. +</p> + +<p> +The first banana-skin which a lot of fellows step on when they're put +over other men is a desire to be too popular. Of course, it's a nice +thing to have everyone stand up and cheer when your name is mentioned, +but it's mighty seldom that that happens to any one till he's dead. +You can buy a certain sort of popularity anywhere with soft soap and +favors; but you can't buy respect with anything but justice, and +that's the only popularity worth having. +</p> + +<p> +You'll find that this world is so small, and that most men in it think +they're so big, that you can't step out in any direction without +treading on somebody's corns, but unless you keep moving, the fellow +who's in a hurry to get somewhere is going to fetch up on your bunion. +Some men are going to dislike you because you're smooth, and others +because you have a brutal way of telling the truth. You're going to +repel some because they think you're cold, and others will cross the +street when they see you coming because they think you slop over. One +fellow won't like you because you're got curly hair, and another will +size you up as a stiff because you're bald. Whatever line of conduct +you adopt you're bound to make some enemies, but so long as there's a +choice I want you to make yours by being straightforward and just. +You'll have the satisfaction of knowing that every enemy you make by +doing the square thing is a rascal at heart. Don't fear too much the +enemy you make by saying No, nor trust too much the friend you make by +saying Yes. +</p> + +<p> +Speaking of being popular naturally calls to mind the case of a fellow +from the North named Binder, who moved to our town when I was a boy, +and allowed that he was going into the undertaking business. Absalom +Magoffin, who had had all the post-mortem trade of the town for forty +years, was a queer old cuss, and he had some mighty aggravating ways. +Never wanted to talk anything but business. Would buttonhole you on +the street, and allow that, while he wasn't a doctor, he had had to +cover up a good many of the doctor's mistakes in his time, and he +didn't just like your symptoms. Said your looks reminded him of Bill +Shorter, who' went off sudden in the fifties, and was buried by the +Masons with a brass band. Asked if you remembered Bill, and that +peculiar pasty look about his skin. Naturally, this sort of thing +didn't make Ab any too popular, and so Binder got a pretty warm +welcome when he struck town. +</p> + +<p> +He started right out by saying that he didn't see any good reason why +an undertaker should act as if he was the next of kin. Was always +stopping people on the streets to tell them the latest, and yelling +out the point in a horse-laugh. Everybody allowed that jolly old +Binder had the right idea; and that Magoffin might as well shut up +shop. Every one in town wanted to see him officiate at a funeral, and +there was a lot of talk about encouraging new enterprises, but it +didn't come to anything. No one appeared to have any public spirit. +</p> + +<p> +Seemed as if we'd never had a healthier spring than that one. Couldn't +fetch a nigger, even. The most unpopular man in town, Miser Dosher, +came down with pneumonia in December, and every one went around saying +how sad it was that there was no hope, and watching for Binder to +start for the house. But in the end Dosher rallied and "went back on +the town," as Si Perkins put it. Then the Hoskins-Bustard crowds took +a crack at each other one court day, but it was mighty poor shooting. +Ham Hoskins did get a few buckshot in his leg, and that had to come +off, but there were no complications. +</p> + +<p> +By this time Binder, though he still laughed and cracked his jokes, +was beginning to get sort of discouraged. But Si Perkins used to go +round and cheer him up by telling him that it was bound to come his +way in the end, and that when it did come it would come with a rush. +</p> + +<p> +Then, all of a sudden, something happened—yellow jack dropped in from +down New Orleans way, and half the people in town had it inside a week +and the other half were so blamed scared that they thought they had +it. But through it all Binder never once lost his merry, cheery ways. +Luckily it was a mild attack and everybody got well; but it made it +mighty easy for Doc Hoover to bring sinners tinder conviction for a +year to come. +</p> + +<p> +When it was all over Binder didn't have a friend in town. Leaked out +little by little that as soon as one of the men who'd been cheering +for jolly old Binder got yellow jack, the first thing he did was to +make his wife swear that she'd have Magoffin do the planting. +</p> + +<p> +You see, that while a man may think it's all foolishness for an +undertaker to go around solemn and sniffling, he'll be a little slow +about hiring a fellow to officiate at his funeral who's apt to take a +sense of humor to it. +</p> + +<p> +Si Perkins was the last one to get well, and the first time he was +able to walk as far as the store he made a little speech. Wanted to +know if we were going to let a Connecticut Yankee trifle with our +holiest emotions. Thought he ought to be given a chance to crack his +blanked New England jokes in Hades. Allowed that the big locust in +front of Binder's store made an ideal spot for a jolly little funeral. +Of course Si wasn't exactly consistent in this, but, as he used to +say, it's the consistent men who keep the devil busy, because no one's +ever really consistent except in his cussedness. It's been my +experience that consistency is simply a steel hoop around a small +mind—it keeps it from expanding. +</p> + +<p> +Well, Si hadn't more than finished before the whole crowd was off +whooping down the street toward Binder's. As soon as they got in range +of the house they began shooting at the windows and yelling for him to +come out if he was a man, but it appeared that Binder wasn't a +man—leastways, he didn't come out—and investigation showed that he +was streaking it back for Connecticut. +</p> + +<p> +I simply mention this little incident as an example of the fact that +popularity is a mighty uncertain critter and a mighty unsafe one to +hitch your wagon to. It'll eat all the oats you bring it, and then +kick you as you're going out of the stall. It's happened pretty often +in my time that I've seen a crowd pelt a man with mud, go away, and, +returning a few months or a few years later, and finding him still in +the same place, throw bouquets at him. But that, mark you, was because +first and last he was standing in the right place. +</p> + +<p> +It's been my experience that there are more cases of hate at first +sight than of love at first sight, and that neither of them is of any +special consequence. You tend strictly to your job of treating your +men square, without slopping over, and when you get into trouble +there'll be a little bunch to line up around you with their horns down +to keep the wolves from cutting you out of the herd. +</p> + +<p> +Your affectionate father, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +JOHN GRAHAM. +</p> + + +<hr> + + +<a name="CHIII"></a><p class="ctr"> +No. 3 +</p> + +<p class="addindent"> +From John Graham, at the Schweitzerkasenhof, Carlsbad, to his son, +Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. A friend of the young +man has just presented a letter of introduction to the old man, and +has exchanged a large bunch of stories for a small roll of bills. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +III +</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> +CARLSBAD, October 24, 189-. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Dear Pierrepont</i>: Yesterday your old college friend, Clarence, blew +in from Monte Carlo, where he had been spending a few days in the +interests of science, and presented your letter of introduction. Said +he still couldn't understand just how it happened, because he had +figured it out by logarithms and trigonometry and differential +calculus and a lot of other high-priced studies that he'd taken away +from Harvard, and that it was a cinch on paper. Was so sure that he +could have proved his theory right if he'd only had a little more +money that it hardly seemed worth while to tell him that the only +thing he could really prove with his system was old Professor Darwin's +theory that men and monkeys began life in the same cage. It never +struck me before, but I'll bet the Professor got that idea while he +was talking with some of his students. +</p> + +<p> +Personally, I don't know a great deal about gambling, because all I +ever spent for information on the subject was $2.75—my fool horse +broke in the stretch—and that was forty years ago; but first and last +I've heard a lot of men explain how it happened that they hadn't made +a hog-killing. Of course, there must be a winning end to gambling, but +all that these men have been able to tell about is the losing end. And +I gather from their experiences that when a fellow does a little +gambling on the side, it's usually on the wrong side. +</p> + +<p> +The fact of the matter is, that the race-horse, the faro tiger, and +the poker kitty have bigger appetites than any healthy critter has a +right to have; and after you've fed a tapeworm, there's mighty little +left for you. Following the horses may be pleasant exercise at the +start, but they're apt to lead you to the door of the poorhouse or the +jail at the finish. +</p> + +<p> +To get back to Clarence; he took about an hour to dock his cargo of +hard luck, and another to tell me how strange it was that there was no +draft from his London bankers waiting to welcome him. Naturally, I +haven't lived for sixty years among a lot of fellows who've been +trying to drive a cold-chisel between me and my bank account, without +being able to smell a touch coming a long time before it overtakes me, +and Clarence's intentions permeated his cheery conversation about as +thoroughly as a fertilizer factory does a warm summer night. Of +course, he gave me every opportunity to prove that I was a gentleman +and to suggest delicately that I should be glad if he would let me act +as his banker in this sudden emergency, but as I didn't show any signs +of being a gentleman and a banker, he was finally forced to come out +and ask me in coarse commercial words to lend him a hundred. Said it +hurt him to have to do it on such short acquaintance, but I couldn't +see that he was suffering any real pain. +</p> + +<p> +Frankly, I shouldn't have lent Clarence a dollar on his looks or his +story, for they both struck me as doubtful collateral, but so long as +he had a letter from you, asking me to "do anything in my power to +oblige him, or to make his stay in Carlsbad pleasant," I let him have +the money on your account, to which I have written the cashier to +charge it. Of course, I hope Clarence will pay you back, but I think +you will save bookkeeping by charging it off to experience. I've +usually found that these quick, glad borrowers are slow, sad payers. +And when a fellow tells you that it hurts him to have to borrow, you +can bet that the thought of having to pay is going to tie him up into +a bow-knot of pain. +</p> + +<p> +Right here I want to caution you against giving away your signature to +every Clarence and Willie that happens along. When your name is on a +note it stands only for money, but when it's on a letter of +introduction or recommendation it stands for your judgment of ability +and character, and you can't call it in at the end of thirty days, +either. Giving a letter of introduction is simply lending your name +with a man as collateral, and if he's no good you can't have the +satisfaction of redeeming your indorsement, even; and you're +discredited. The first thing that a young merchant must learn is that +his brand must never appear on a note, or a ham, or a man that isn't +good. I reckon that the devil invented the habit of indorsing notes +and giving letters to catch the fellows he couldn't reach with whisky +and gambling. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, letters of introduction have their proper use, but about +nine out of ten of them are simply a license to some Clarence to waste +an hour of your time and to graft on you for the luncheon and cigars. +It's getting so that a fellow who's almost a stranger to me doesn't +think anything of asking for a letter of introduction to one who's a +total stranger. You can't explain to these men, because when you try +to let them down easy by telling them that you haven't had any real +opportunity to know what their special abilities are, they always come +back with an, "Oh! that's all right—just say a word and refer to +anything you like about me." +</p> + +<p> +I give them the letter then, unsealed, and though, of course, they're +not supposed to read it, I have reason to think that they do, because +I've never heard of one of those letters being presented. I use the +same form on all of them, and after they've pumped their thanks into +me and rushed around the corner, they find in the envelope: "This will +introduce Mr. Gallister. While I haven't had the pleasure of any +extended acquaintance with Mr. Gallister, I like his nerve." +</p> + +<p> +It's a mighty curious thing, but a lot of men who have no claim on +you, and who wouldn't think of asking for money, will panhandle both +sides of a street for favors that mean more than money. Of course, +it's the easy thing and the pleasant thing not to refuse, and after +all, most men think, it doesn't cost anything but a few strokes of the +pen, and so they will give a fellow that they wouldn't ordinarily play +on their friends as a practical joke, a nice sloppy letter of +introduction to them; or hand out to a man that they wouldn't give +away as a booby prize, a letter of recommendation in which they crack +him up as having all the qualities necessary for an A1 Sunday-school +superintendent and bank president. +</p> + +<p> +Now that you are a boss you will find that every other man who comes +to your desk is going to ask you for something; in fact, the +difference between being a sub and a boss is largely a matter of +asking for things and of being asked for things. But it's just as one +of those poets said—you can't afford to burn down the glue factory to +stimulate the demand for glue stock, or words to that effect. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, I don't mean by this that I want you to be one of those +fellows who swell out like a ready-made shirt and brag that they "never +borrow and never lend." They always think that this shows that they are +sound, conservative business men, but, as a matter of fact, it simply +stamps them as mighty mean little cusses. It's very superior, I know, +to say that you never borrow, but most men have to at one time or +another, and then they find that the never-borrow-never-lend platform +is a mighty inconvenient one to be standing on. Be just in business and +generous out of it. A fellow's generosity needs a heap of exercise to +keep it in good condition, and the hand that writes out checks gets +cramped easier than the hand that takes them in. You want to keep them +both limber. +</p> + +<p> +While I don't believe in giving with a string tied to every dollar, or +doing up a gift in so many conditions that the present is lost in the +wrappings, it's a good idea not to let most people feel that money can +be had for the asking. If you do, they're apt to go into the asking +business for a living. But these millionaires who give away a hundred +thousand or so, with the understanding that the other fellow will +raise another hundred thousand or so, always remind me of a lot of +boys coaxing a dog into their yard with a hunk of meat, so that they +can tie a tin can to his tail—the pup edges up licking his chops at +the thought of the provisions and hanging his tail at the thought of +the hardware. If he gets the meat, he's got to run himself to death to +get rid of the can. +</p> + +<p> +While we're on this subject of favors I want to impress on you the +importance of deciding promptly. The man who can make up his mind +quick, makes up other people's minds for them. Decision is a sharp +knife that cuts clear and straight and lays bare the fat and the lean; +indecision, a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges +behind it. Say yes or no—seldom perhaps. Some people have such +fertile imaginations that they will take a grain of hope and grow a +large definite promise with bark on it overnight, and later, when you +come to pull that out of their brains by the roots, it hurts, and they +holler. +</p> + +<p> +When a fellow asks for a job in your department there may be reasons +why you hate to give him a clear-cut refusal, but tell him frankly +that you see no possibility of placing him, and while he may not like +the taste of the medicine, he swallows it and it's down and forgotten. +But you say to him that you're very sorry your department is full just +now, but that you think a place will come along later and that he +shall have the first call on it, and he goes away with his teeth in a +job. You've simply postponed your trouble for a few weeks or months. +And trouble postponed always has to be met with accrued interest. +</p> + +<p> +Never string a man along in business. It isn't honest and it isn't +good policy. Either's a good reason, but taken together they head the +list of good reasons. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, I don't mean that you want to go rampaging along, trampling +on people's feelings and goring every one who sticks up a head in your +path. But there's no use shilly-shallying and doddering with people +who ask questions and favors they have no right to ask. Don't hurt any +one if you can help it, but if you must, a clean, quick wound heals +soonest. +</p> + +<p> +When you can, it's better to refuse a request by letter. In a letter +you need say only what you choose; in a talk you may have to say more +than you want to say. +</p> + +<p> +With the best system in the world you'll find it impossible, however, +to keep a good many people who have no real business with you from +seeing you and wasting your time, because a broad-gauged merchant must +be accessible. When a man's office is policed and every one who sees +him has to prove that he's taken the third degree and is able to give +the grand hailing sign, he's going to miss a whole lot of things that +it would be mighty valuable for him to know. Of course, the man whose +errand could be attended to by the office-boy is always the one who +calls loudest for the boss, but with a little tact you can weed out +most of these fellows, and it's better to see ten bores than to miss +one buyer. A house never gets so big that it can afford to sniff at a +hundred-pound sausage order, or to feel that any customer is so small +that it can afford not to bother with him. You've got to open a good +many oysters to find a pearl. +</p> + +<p> +You should answer letters just as you answer men—promptly, +courteously, and decisively. Of course, you don't ever want to go off +half-cocked and bring down a cow instead of the buck you're aiming at, +but always remember that game is shy and that you can't shoot too +quick after you've once got it covered. When I go into a fellow's +office and see his desk buried in letters with the dust on them, I +know that there are cobwebs in his head. Foresight is the quality that +makes a great merchant, but a man who has his desk littered with +yesterday's business has no time to plan for to-morrow's. +</p> + +<p> +The only letters that can wait are those which provoke a hot answer. A +good hot letter is always foolish, and you should never write a +foolish thing if you can say it to the man instead, and never say it +if you can forget it. The wisest man may make an ass of himself +to-day, over to-day's provocation, but he won't tomorrow. Before being +used, warm words should be run into the cooling-room until the animal +heat is out of them. Of course, there's no use in a fool's waiting, +because there's no room in a small head in which to lose a grievance. +</p> + +<p> +Speaking of small heads naturally calls to mind a gold brick named +Solomon Saunders that I bought when I was a good deal younger and +hadn't been buncoed so often. I got him with a letter recommending him +as a sort of happy combination of the three wise men of the East and +the nine muses, and I got rid of him with one in which I allowed that +he was the whole dozen. +</p> + +<p> +I really hired Sol because he reminded me of some one I'd known and +liked, though I couldn't just remember at the time who it was; but one +day, after he'd been with me about a week, it came to me in a flash +that he was the living image of old Bucker, a billy-goat I'd set aheap +of store by when I was a boy. That was a lesson to me on the +foolishness of getting sentimental in business. I never think of the +old homestead that echo doesn't answer, "Give up!"; or hear from it +without getting a bill for having been born there. +</p> + +<p> +Sol had started out in life to be a great musician. Had raised the +hair for the job and had kept his finger-nails cut just right for it, +but somehow, when he played "My Old Kentucky Home," nobody sobbed +softly in the fourth row. You see, he could play a piece absolutely +right and meet every note just when it came due, but when he got +through it was all wrong. That was Sol in business, too. He knew just +the right rule for doing everything and did it just that way, and yet +everything he did turned out to be a mistake. Made it twice as +aggravating because you couldn't consistently find fault with him. If +you'd given Sol the job of making over the earth he'd have built it +out of the latest text-book on "How to Make the World Better," and +have turned out something as correct as a spike-tail coat—and every +one would have wanted to die to get out of it. +</p> + +<p> +Then, too, I never saw such a cuss for system. Other men would forget +costs and prices, but Sol never did. Seemed he ran his memory by +system. Had a way when there was a change in the price-list of taking +it home and setting it to poetry. Used "Ring Out, Wild Bells," by A. +Tennyson, for a bull market—remember he began it "Ring Off, Wild +Bulls"—and "Break, Break, Break," for a bear one. +</p> + +<p> +It used to annoy me considerable when I asked him the price of pork +tenderloins to have him mumble through two or three verses till he +fetched it up, but I didn't have any real kick coming till he got +ambitious and I had to wait till he'd hummed half through a grand +opera to get a quotation on pickled pigs' feet in kits. I felt that we +had reached the parting of the ways then, but I didn't like to point +out his way too abruptly, because the friend who had unloaded him on +us was pretty important to me in my business just then, and he seemed +to be all wrapped up in Sol's making a hit with us. +</p> + +<p> +It's been my experience, though, that sometimes when you can't kick a +man out of the back door without a row, you can get him to walk out +the front way voluntarily. So when I get stuck with a fellow that, for +some reason, it isn't desirable to fire, I generally promote him and +raise his pay. Some of these weak sisters I make the assistant boss of +the machine-shop and some of the bone-meal mill. I didn't dare send +Sol to the machine-shop, because I knew he wouldn't have been there a +week before he'd have had the shop running on Götterdämmerung or one +of those other cuss-word operas of Wagner's. But the strong point of a +bone-meal mill is bone-dust, and the strong point of bone-dust is +smell, and the strong point of its smell is its staying qualities. +Naturally it's the sort of job for which you want a bald-headed man, +because a fellow who's got nice thick curls will cheat the house by +taking a good deal of the product home with him. To tell the truth, +Sol's hair had been worrying me almost as much as his system. When I +hired him I'd supposed he'd finally molt it along with his musical +tail-feathers. I had a little talk with him then, in which I hinted at +the value of looking clear-cut and trim and of giving sixteen ounces +to the pound, but the only result of it was that he went off and +bought a pot of scented vaseline and grew another inch of hair for +good measure. It seemed a pity now, so long as I was after his scalp, +not to get it with the hair on. +</p> + +<p> +Sol had never seen a bone-meal mill, but it flattered him mightily to +be promoted into the manufacturing end, "where a fellow could get +ahead faster," and he said good-by to the boys in the office with his +nose in the air, where he kept it, I reckon, during the rest of his +connection with the house. +</p> + +<p> +If Sol had stuck it out for a month at the mill I'd have known that he +had the right stuff in him somewhere and have taken him back into the +office after a good rub-down with pumice-stone. But he turned up the +second day, smelling of violet soap and bone-meal, and he didn't sing +his list of grievances, either. Started right in by telling me how, +when he got into a street-car, all the other passengers sort of faded +out; and how his landlady insisted on serving his meals in his room. +Almost foamed at the mouth when I said the office seemed a little +close and opened the window, and he quoted some poetry about that +being "the most unkindest cut of all." Wound up by wanting to know how +he was going to get it out of his hair. +</p> + +<p> +I broke it to him as gently as I could that it would have to wear out +or be cut out, and tried to make him see that it was better to be a +bald-headed boss on a large salary than a curly-headed clerk on a +small one; but, in the end, he resigned, taking along a letter from me +to the friend who had recommended him and some of my good bone-meal. +</p> + +<p> +I didn't grudge him the fertilizer, but I did feel sore that he hadn't +left me a lock of his hair, till some one saw him a few days later, +dodging along with his collar turned up and his hat pulled down, +looking like a new-clipped lamb. I heard, too, that the fellow who had +given him the wise-men-muses letter to me was so impressed with the +almost exact duplicate of it which I gave Sol, and with the fact that +I had promoted him so soon, that he concluded he must have let a good +man get by him, and hired him himself. +</p> + +<p> +Sol was a failure as a musician because, while he knew all the notes, +he had nothing in himself to add to them when he played them. It's +easy to learn all the notes that make good music and all the rules +that make good business, but a fellow's got to add the fine curves to +them himself if he wants to do anything more than beat the bass-drum +all his life. Some men think that rules should be made of cast iron; I +believe that they should be made of rubber, so that they can be +stretched to fit any particular case and then spring back into shape +again. The really important part of a rule is the exception to it. +</p> + +<p> +Your affectionate father, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +JOHN GRAHAM. +</p> + +<p> +P.S.—Leave for home to-morrow. +</p> + + +<hr> + + +<a name="CHIV"></a><p class="ctr"> +No. 4 +</p> + +<p class="addindent"> +From John Graham, at the Hotel Cecil, London, to his son, Pierrepont, +at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The old man has just finished going +through the young man's first report as manager of the lard +department, and he finds it suspiciously good. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +IV +</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> +LONDON, December 1, 189-. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Dear Pierrepont</i>: Your first report; looks so good that I'm a little +afraid of it. Figures don't lie, I know, but that's, only because they +can't talk. As a matter of fact, they're just as truthful as the man +who's behind them. +</p> + +<p> +It's been my experience that there are two kinds of figures—educated +and uneducated ones—and that the first are a good deal like the +people who have had the advantage of a college education on the inside +and the disadvantage of a society finish on the outside—they're apt +to tell you only the smooth and the pleasant things. Of course, it's +mighty nice to be told that the shine of your shirt-front is blinding +the floor-manager's best girl; but if there's a hole in the seat of +your pants you ought to know that, too, because sooner or later you've +got to turn your back to the audience. +</p> + +<p> +Now don't go off half-cocked and think I'm allowing that you ain't +truthful; because I think you are—reasonably so—and I'm sure that +everything you say in your report is true. But is there anything you +don't say in it? +</p> + +<p> +A good many men are truthful on the installment plan—that is, they +tell their boss all the good things in sight about their end of the +business and then dribble out the bad ones like a fellow who's giving +you a list of his debts. They'll yell for a week that the business of +their department has increased ten per cent., and then own up in a +whisper that their selling cost has increased twenty. In the end, that +always creates a worse impression than if both sides of the story had +been told at once or the bad had been told first. It's like buying a +barrel of apples that's been deaconed—after you've found that the +deeper you go the meaner and wormier the fruit, you forget all about +the layer of big, rosy, wax-finished pippins which was on top. +</p> + +<p> +I never worry about the side of a proposition that I can see; what I +want to get a look at is the side that's out of sight. The bugs always +snuggle down on the under side of the stone. +</p> + +<p> +The best year we ever had—in our minds—was one when the +superintendent of the packing-house wanted an increase in his salary, +and, to make a big showing, swelled up his inventory like a poisoned +pup. It took us three months, to wake up to what had happened, and a +year to get over feeling as if there was sand in our eyes when we +compared the second showing with the first. An optimist is as bad as a +drunkard when he comes to figure up results in business—he sees +double. I employ optimists to get results and pessimists to figure +them up. +</p> + +<p> +After I've charged off in my inventory for wear and tear and +depreciation, I deduct a little more just for luck—bad luck. That's +the only sort of luck a merchant can afford to make a part of his +calculations. +</p> + +<p> +The fellow who said you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear +wasn't on to the packing business. You can make the purse and you can +fill it, too, from the same critter. What you can't do is to load up a +report with moonshine or an inventory with wind, and get anything more +substantial than a moonlight sail toward bankruptcy. The kittens of a +wildcat are wildcats, and there's no use counting on their being +angoras. +</p> + +<p> +Speaking of educated pigs naturally calls to mind Jake Solzenheimer +and the lard that he sold half a cent a pound cheaper than any one +else in the business could make it. That was a long time ago, when the +packing business was still on the bottle, and when the hogs that came +to Chicago got only a common-school education and graduated as plain +hams and sides and lard and sausage. Literature hadn't hit the hog +business then. It was just Graham's hams or Smith's lard, and there +were no poetical brands or high-art labels. +</p> + +<p> +Well, sir, one day I heard that this Jake was offering lard to the +trade at half a cent under the market, and that he'd had the nerve to +label it "Driven Snow Leaf." Told me, when I ran up against him on the +street, that he'd got the name from a song which began, "Once I was +pure as the driven snow." Said it made him feel all choky and as if he +wanted to be a better man, so he'd set out to make the song famous in +the hope of its helping others. Allowed that this was a hard world, +and that it was little enough we could do in our business life to +scatter sunshine along the way; but he proposed that every can which +left his packing-house after this should carry the call to a better +life into some humble home. +</p> + +<p> +I let him lug that sort of stuff to the trough till he got tired, and +then I looked him square in the eye and went right at him with: +</p> + +<p> +"Jake, what you been putting in that lard?" because I knew mighty well +that there was something in it which had never walked on four feet and +fattened up on fifty-cent corn and then paid railroad fare from the +Missouri River to Chicago. There are a good many things I don't know, +but hogs ain't one of them. +</p> + +<p> +Jake just grinned at me and swore that there was nothing in his lard +except the pure juice of the hog; so I quit fooling with him and took +a can of "Driven Snow" around to our chemist. It looked like lard and +smelt like lard—in fact, it looked better than real lard: too white +and crinkly and tempting on top. And the next day the chemist came +down to my office and told me that "Driven Snow" must have been driven +through a candle factory, because it had picked up about twenty per +cent. of paraffin wax somewhere. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, I saw now why Jake was able to undersell us all, but it was +mighty important to knock out "Driven Snow" with the trade in just the +right way, because most of our best customers had loaded up with it. +So I got the exact formula from the chemist and had about a hundred +sample cans made up, labeling each one "Wandering Boy Leaf Lard," and +printing on the labels: "This lard contains twenty per cent. of +paraffin." +</p> + +<p> +I sent most of these cans, with letters of instruction, to our men +through the country. Then I waited until it was Jake's time to be at +the Live Stock Exchange, and happened in with a can of "Wandering Boy" +under my arm. It didn't take me long to get into conversation with +Jake, and as we talked I swung that can around until it attracted his +attention, and he up and asked: +</p> + +<p> +"What you got there, Graham?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, that," I answered, slipping the can behind my back—"that's a new +lard we're putting out—something not quite so expensive as our +regular brand." +</p> + +<p> +Jake stopped grinning then and gave me a mighty sharp look. +</p> + +<p> +"Lemme have a squint at it," says he, trying not to show too keen an +interest in his face. +</p> + +<p> +I held back a little; then I said: "Well, I don't just know as I ought +to show you this. We haven't regularly put it on the market, and this +can ain't a fair sample of what we can do; but so long as I sort of +got the idea from you I might as well tell you. I'd been thinking over +what you said about that lard of yours, and while they were taking a +collection in church the other day the soprano up and sings a mighty +touching song. It began, 'Where is my wandering boy to-night?' and by +the time she was through I was feeling so mushy and sobby that I put a +five instead of a one into the plate by mistake. I've been thinking +ever since that the attention of the country ought to be called to +that song, and so I've got up this missionary lard"; and I shoved the +can of "Wandering Boy" under his eyes, giving him time to read the +whole label. +</p> + +<p> +"H—l!" he said. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," I answered; "that's it. Good lard gone wrong; but it's going to +do a great work." +</p> + +<div class="img"><img src="Images/03.jpg" alt=""That's it—good lard gone wrong"" width="249" height="309"></div> +<p class="caption">"That's it—good lard gone wrong" +</p> + +<p> +Jake's face looked like the Lost Tribes—the whole bunch of 'em—as +the thing soaked in; and then he ran his arm through mine and drew me +off into a corner. +</p> + +<p> +"Graham," said he, "let's drop this cussed foolishness. You keep dark +about this and we'll divide the lard trade of the country." +</p> + +<p> +I pretended not to understand what he was driving at, but reached out +and grasped his hand and wrung it. "Yes, yes, Jake," I said; "we'll +stand shoulder to shoulder and make the lard business one grand sweet +song," and then I choked him off by calling another fellow into the +conversation. It hardly seemed worth while to waste time telling Jake +what he was going to find out when he got back to his office—that +there wasn't any lard business to divide, because I had hogged it all. +</p> + +<p> +You see, my salesmen had taken their samples of "Wandering Boy" around +to the buyers and explained that it was made from the same formula as +"Driven Snow," and could be bought at the same price. They didn't sell +any "Boy," of course—that wasn't the idea; but they loaded up the +trade with our regular brand, to take the place of the "Driven Snow," +which was shipped back to Jake by the car-lot. +</p> + +<p> +Since then, when anything looks too snowy and smooth and good at the +first glance, I generally analyze it for paraffin. I've found that +this is a mighty big world for a square man and a mighty small world +for a crooked one. +</p> + +<p> +I simply mention these things in a general way. I've confidence that +you're going to make good as head of the lard department, and if, when +I get home, I find that your work analyzes seventy-five per cent, as +pure as your report I shall be satisfied. In the meanwhile I shall +instruct the cashier to let you draw a hundred dollars a week, just to +show that I haven't got a case of faith without works. I reckon the +extra twenty-five per will come in mighty handy now that you're within +a month of marrying Helen. +</p> + +<p> +I'm still learning how to treat an old wife, and so I can't give you +many pointers about a young one. For while I've been married as long +as I've been in business, and while I know all the curves of the great +American hog, your ma's likely to spring a new one on me tomorrow. No +man really knows anything about women except a widower, and he forgets +it when he gets ready to marry again. And no woman really knows +anything about men except a widow, and she's got to forget it before +she's willing to marry again. The one thing you can know is that, as a +general proposition, a woman is a little better than the man for whom +she cares. For when a woman's bad, there's always a man at the bottom +of it; and when a man's good, there's always a woman at the bottom of +that, too. +</p> + +<p> +The fact of the matter is, that while marriages may be made in heaven, +a lot of them are lived in hell and end in South Dakota. But when a +man has picked out a good woman he holds four hearts, and he needn't +be afraid to draw cards if he's got good nerve. If he hasn't, he's got +no business to be sitting in games of chance. The best woman in the +world will begin trying out a man before she's been married to him +twenty-four hours; and unless he can smile over the top of a +four-flush and raise the ante, she's going to rake in the breeches and +keep them. +</p> + +<p> +The great thing is to begin right. Marriage is a close corporation, +and unless a fellow gets the controlling interest at the start he +can't pick it up later. The partner who owns fifty-one per cent. of +the stock in any business is the boss, even if the other is allowed to +call himself president. There's only two jobs for a man in his own +house—one's boss and the other's office-boy, and a fellow naturally +falls into the one for which he's fitted. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, when I speak of a fellow's being boss in his own home, I +simply mean that, in a broad way, he's going to shape the policy of +the concern. When a man goes sticking his nose into the running of the +house, he's apt to get it tweaked, and while he's busy drawing <i>it</i> +back out of danger he's going to get his leg pulled, too. You let your +wife tend to the housekeeping and you focus on earning money with +which she can keep house. Of course, in one way, it's mighty nice of a +man to help around the place, but it's been my experience that the +fellows who tend to all the small jobs at home never get anything else +to tend to at the office. In the end, it's usually cheaper to give all +your attention to your business and to hire a plumber. +</p> + +<p> +You don't want to get it into your head, though, that because your +wife hasn't any office-hours she has a soft thing. A lot of men go +around sticking out their chests and wondering why their wives have so +much trouble with the help, when they are able to handle their clerks +so easy. If you really want to know, you lift two of your men out of +their revolving-chairs, and hang one over a forty-horse-power +cook-stove that's booming along under forced draft so that your dinner +won't be late, with a turkey that's gobbling for basting in one oven, +and a cake that's gone back on you in a low, underhand way in another, +and sixteen different things boiling over on top and mixing up their +smells. And you set the other at a twelve-hour stunt of making all the +beds you've mussed, and washing all the dishes you've used, and +cleaning all the dust you've kicked up, and you boss the whole while +the baby yells with colic over your arm—you just try this with two of +your men and see how long it is before there's rough-house on the +Wabash. Yet a lot of fellows come home after their wives have had a +day of this and blow around about how tired and overworked they are, +and wonder why home isn't happier. Don't you ever forget that it's a +blamed sight easier to keep cool in front of an electric fan than a +cook-stove, and that you can't subject the best temper in the world to +500 degrees Fahrenheit without warming it up a bit. And don't you add +to your wife's troubles by saying how much better you could do it, but +stand pat and thank the Lord you've got a snap. +</p> + +<p> +I remember when old Doc Hoover, just after his wife died, bought a +mighty competent nigger, Aunt Tempy, to cook and look after the house +for him. She was the boss cook, you bet, and she could fry a chicken +into a bird of paradise just as easy as the Doc could sizzle a sinner +into a pretty tolerable Christian. +</p> + +<p> +The old man took his religion with the bristles on, and he wouldn't +stand for any Sunday work in his house. Told Tempy to cook enough for +two days on Saturday and to serve three cold meals on Sunday. +</p> + +<p> +Tempy sniffed a little, but she'd been raised well and didn't talk +back. That first Sunday Doc got his cold breakfast all right, but +before he'd fairly laid into it Tempy trotted out a cup of hot coffee. +That made the old man rage at first, but finally he allowed that, +seeing it was made, there was no special harm in taking a sup or two, +but not to let it occur again. A few minutes later he called back to +Tempy in the kitchen and asked her if she'd been sinful enough to make +two cups. +</p> + +<p> +Doc's dinner was ready for him when he got back from church, and it +was real food—that is to say, hot food, a-sizzling and a-smoking from +the stove. Tempy told around afterward that the way the old man went +for her about it made her feel mighty proud and set-up over her new +master. But she just stood there dripping perspiration and good nature +until the Doc had wound up by allowing that there was only one part of +the hereafter where meals were cooked on Sunday, and that she'd surely +get a mention on the bill of fare there as dark meat, well done, if +she didn't repent, and then she blurted out: +</p> + +<p> +"Law, chile, you go 'long and 'tend to yo' preaching and I'll 'tend to +my cookin'; yo' can't fight the debbil with snow-balls." And what's +more, the Doc didn't, not while Aunt Tempy was living. +</p> + +<p> +There isn't any moral to this, but there's a hint in it to mind your +own business at home as well as at the office. I sail to-morrow. I'm +feeling in mighty good spirits, and I hope I'm not going to find +anything at your end of the line to give me a relapse. +</p> + +<p> +Your affectionate father, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +JOHN GRAHAM. +</p> + + +<hr> + + +<a name="CHV"></a><p class="ctr"> +No. 5 +</p> + +<p class="addindent"> +From John Graham, at the Waldorf-Astoria, New York, to his son, +Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The young man has +hinted vaguely of a quarrel between himself and Helen Heath, who is in +New York with her mother, and has suggested that the old man act as +peacemaker. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +V +</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> +NEW YORK, December 8, 189-. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Dear Pierrepont</i>: I've been afraid all along that you were going to +spoil the only really sensible thing you've ever done by making some +fool break, so as soon as I got your letter I started right out to +trail down Helen and her ma. I found them hived up here in the hotel, +and Miss Helen was so sweet to your poor old pa that I saw right off +she had a stick cut for his son. Of course, I didn't let on that I +knew anything about a quarrel, but I gradually steered the +conversation around to you, and while I don't want to hurt your +feelings, I am violating no confidence when I tell you that the +mention of your name aroused about the same sort of enthusiasm that +Bill Bryan's does in Wall Street—only Helen is a lady and so she +couldn't cuss. But it wasn't the language of flowers that I saw in her +eyes. So I told her that she must make allowances for you, as you were +only a half-baked boy, and that, naturally, if she stuck a hat-pin +into your crust she was going to strike a raw streak here and there. +</p> + +<p> +She sat up a little at that, and started in to tell me that while you +had said "some very, very cruel, cruel things to her, still—" But I +cut her short by allowing that, sorry as I was to own it, I was afraid +you had a streak of the brute in you, and I only hoped that you +wouldn't take it out on her after you were married. +</p> + +<p> +Well, sir, the way she flared up, I thought that all the Fourth of +July fireworks had gone off at once. The air was full of +trouble—trouble in set pieces and bombs and sizzy rockets and +sixteen-ball Roman candles, and all pointed right at me. Then it came +on to rain in the usual way, and she began to assure me between +showers that you were so kind and gentle that it hurt you to work, or +to work at my horrid pig-sticking business, I forget which, and I +begged her pardon for having misjudged you so cruelly, and then the +whole thing sort of simmered off into a discussion of whether I +thought you'd rather she wore pink or blue at breakfast. So I guess +you're all right. Only you'd better write quick and apologize. +</p> + +<p> +I didn't get at the facts of the quarrel, but you're in the wrong. A +fellow's always in the wrong when he quarrels with a woman, and even +if he wasn't at the start he's sure to be before he gets through. And +a man who's decided to marry can't be too quick learning to apologize +for things he didn't say and to be forgiven for things he didn't do. +When you differ with your wife, never try to reason out who's in the +wrong, because you'll find that after you've proved it to her shell +still have a lot of talk left that she hasn't used. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, it isn't natural and it isn't safe for married people, and +especially young married people, not to quarrel a little, but you'll +save a heap of trouble if you make it a rule never to refuse a request +before breakfast and never to grant one after dinner. I don't know why +it is, but most women get up in the morning as cheerful as a +breakfast-food ad., while a man will snort and paw for trouble the +minute his hoofs touch the floor. Then, if you'll remember that the +longer the last word is kept the bitterer it gets, and that your wife +is bound to have it anyway, you'll cut the rest of your quarrels so +short that she'll never find out just how much meanness there is in +you. Be the silent partner at home and the thinking one at the office. +Do your loose talking in your sleep. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, if you get a woman who's really fond of quarreling there +isn't any special use in keeping still, because she'll holler if you +talk back and yell if you don't. The best that you can do is to +pretend that you've got a chronic case of ear-ache, and keep your ears +stuffed with cotton. Then, like as not, she'll buy you one of these +things that you hold in your mouth so that you can hear through your +teeth. +</p> + +<p> +I don't believe you're going to draw anything of that sort with Helen, +but this is a mighty uncertain world, especially when you get to +betting on which way the kitten is going to jump—you can usually +guess right about the cat—and things don't always work out as +planned. +</p> + +<p> +While there's no sure rule for keeping out of trouble in this world, +there's a whole set of them for getting into it. +</p> + +<p> +I remember a mighty nice, careful mother who used to shudder when +slang was used in her presence. So she vowed she'd give <i>her</i> son a +name that the boys couldn't twist into any low, vulgar nick-name. She +called him Algernon, but the kid had a pretty big nose, and the first +day he was sent to school with his long lace collar and his short +velvet pants the boys christened him Snooty, and now his parents are +the only people who know what his real name is. +</p> + +<p> +After you've been married a little while you're going to find that +there are two kinds of happiness you can have—home happiness and +fashionable happiness. With the first kind you get a lot of children +and with the second a lot of dogs. While the dogs mind better and seem +more affectionate, because they kiss you with their whole face, I've +always preferred to associate with children. Then, for the first kind +of happiness you keep house for yourself, and for the second you keep +house for the neighbors. +</p> + +<p> +You can buy a lot of home happiness with a mighty small salary, but +fashionable happiness always costs just a little more than you're +making. You can't keep down expenses when you've got to keep up +appearances—that is, the appearance of being something that you +ain't. You're in the fix of a dog chasing his tail—you can't make +ends meet, and if you do it'll give you such a crick in your neck that +you won't get any real satisfaction out of your gymnastics. You've got +to live on a rump-steak basis when you're alone, so that you can +appear to be on a quail-on-toast basis when you have company. And +while they're eating your quail and betting that they're cold-storage +birds, they'll be whispering to each other that the butcher told their +cook that you lived all last week on a soup-bone and two pounds of +Hamburger steak. Your wife must hog it around the house in an old +wrapper, because she's got to have two or three of those dresses that +come high on the bills and low on the shoulders, and when she wears +'em the neighbors are going to wonder how much you're short in your +accounts. And if you've been raised a shouting Methodist and been used +to hollering your satisfaction in a good hearty Glory! or a +Hallelujah! you've got to quit it and go to one of those churches +where the right answer to the question, "What is the chief end of +man?" is "Dividend," and where they think you're throwing a fit and +sick the sexton on to you if you forget yourself and whoop it up a +little when your religion gets to working. +</p> + +<p> +Then, if you do have any children, you can't send them to a plain +public school to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic, because +they've got to go to a fashionable private one to learn hog-Latin, +hog-wash, and how much the neighbors are worth. Of course, the rich +children are going to say that they're pushing little kids, but +they've got to learn to push and to shove and to butt right in where +they're not wanted if they intend to herd with the real angora +billy-goats. They've got to learn how to bow low to every one in front +of them and to kick out at every one behind them. It's been my +experience that it takes a good four-year course in snubbing before +you can graduate a first-class snob. +</p> + +<p> +Then, when you've sweat along at it for a dozen years or so, you'll +wake up some morning and discover that your appearances haven't +deceived any one but yourself. A man who tries that game is a good +deal like the fellow who puts on a fancy vest over a dirty shirt—he's +the only person in the world who can't see the egg-spots under his +chin. Of course, there isn't any real danger of your family's wearing +a false front while I'm alive, because I believe Helen's got too much +sense to stand for anything of the sort; but if she should, you can +expect the old man around with his megaphone to whisper the real +figures to your neighbors. +</p> + +<p> +I don't care how much or how little money you make—I want you to +understand that there's only one place in the world where you can live +a happy life, and that's inside your income. A family that's living +beyond its means is simply a business that's losing money, and it's +bound to go to smash. And to keep a safe distance ahead of the sheriff +you've got to make your wife help. More men go broke through bad +management at home than at the office. And I might add that a lot of +men who are used to getting only one dollar's worth of food for a +five-dollar bill down-town, expect their wives to get five dollars' +worth of food for a one-dollar bill at the corner grocery, and to save +the change toward a pair of diamond earrings. These fellows would +plant a tin can and kick because they didn't get a case of tomatoes. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, some women put their husband's salaries on their backs +instead of his ribs; but there are a heap more men who burn up their +wives' new sealskin sacques in two-bit cigars. Because a man's a good +provider it doesn't always mean that he's a good husband—it may mean +that he's a hog. And when there's a cuss in the family and it comes +down to betting which, on general principles the man always carries my +money. I make mistakes at it, but it's the only winning system I've +ever been able to discover in games of chance. +</p> + +<p> +You want to end the wedding trip with a business meeting and talk to +your wife quite as frankly as you would to a man whom you'd taken into +partnership. Tell her just what your salary is and then lay it out +between you—so much for joint expenses, the house and the +housekeeping, so much for her expenses, so much for yours, and so much +to be saved. That last is the one item on which you can't afford to +economize. It's the surplus and undivided profits account of your +business, and until the concern accumulates a big one it isn't safe to +move into offices on Easy Street. +</p> + +<p> +A lot of fool fathers only give their fool daughters a liberal +education in spending, and it's pretty hard to teach those women the +real facts about earning and saving, but it's got to be done unless +you want to be the fool husband of a fool wife. These girls have an +idea that men get money by going to a benevolent old party behind some +brass bars and shoving a check at him and telling him that they want +it in fifties and hundreds. +</p> + +<p> +You should take home your salary in actual money for a while, and +explain that it's all you got for sweating like a dog for ten hours a +day, through six long days, and that the cashier handed it out with an +expression as if you were robbing the cash-drawer of an orphan asylum. +Make her understand that while those that have gets, when they present +a check, those that haven't gets it in the neck. Explain that the +benevolent old party is only on duty when papa's daughter has a papa +that Bradstreet rates AA, and that when papa's daughter's husband +presents a five-dollar check with a ten-cent overdraft, he's received +by a low-browed old brute who calls for the bouncer to put him out. +Tell her right at the start the worst about the butcher, and the +grocer, and the iceman, and the milkman, and the plumber, and the +gas-meter—that they want their money and that it has to come out of +that little roll of bills. Then give her enough to pay them, even if +you have to grab for your lunch from a high stool. I used to know an +old Jew who said that the man who carved was always a fool or a hog, +but you've got to learn not to divide your salary on either basis. +</p> + +<p> +Make your wife pay cash. A woman never really understands money till +she's done that for a while. I've noticed that people rarely pay down +the money for foolish purchases—they charge them. And it's mighty +seldom that a woman's extravagant unless she or her husband pays the +bills by check. There's something about counting out the actual legal +tender on the spot that keeps a woman from really wanting a lot of +things which she thinks she wants. +</p> + +<p> +When I married your ma, your grandpa was keeping eighteen niggers busy +seeing that the family did nothing. She'd had a liberal education, +which, so far as I've been able to find out, means teaching a woman +everything except the real business that she's going into—that is, if +she marries. But when your ma swapped the big house and the eighteen +niggers for me and an old mammy to do the rough work, she left the +breakfast-in-bed, fine-lady business behind her and started right in +to get the rest of the education that belonged to her. She did a +mighty good job, too, all except making ends meet, and they were too +elastic for her at first—sort of snapped back and left a deficit just +when she thought she had them together. +</p> + +<p> +She was mighty sorry about it, but she'd never heard of any way of +getting money except asking papa for it, and she'd sort of supposed +that every one asked papa when they wanted any, and, why didn't I ask +papa? I finally made her see that I couldn't ask my papa, because I +hadn't any, and that I couldn't ask hers, because it was against the +rules of the game as I played it, and that was her first real lesson +in high finance and low finances. +</p> + +<p> +I gave her the second when she came to me about the twentieth of the +month and kissed me on the ear and sent a tickly little whisper after +it to the effect that the household appropriation for the month was +exhausted and the pork-barrel and the meal-sack and the chicken-coop +were in the same enfeebled condition. +</p> + +<p> +I didn't say anything at first, only looked pretty solemn, and then I +allowed that she'd have to go into the hands of a receiver. Well, sir, +the way she snuggled up to me and cried made me come pretty close to +weakening, but finally I told her that I reckoned I could manage to be +appointed by the court and hush up the scandal so the neighbors +wouldn't hear of it. +</p> + +<p> +I took charge of her little books and paid over to myself her +housekeeping money each month, buying everything myself, but +explaining every move I made, until in the end I had paid her out of +debt and caught up with my salary again. Then I came home on the first +of the month, handed out her share of the money, and told her that the +receiver had been discharged by the court. +</p> + +<p> +My! but she was pleased. And then she paid me out for the scare I'd +given her by making me live on side-meat and corn-bread for a month, +so she'd be sure not to get the sheriff after her again. Of course, I +had to tell her all about it in the end, and though she's never +forgotten what she learned about money during the receivership, she's +never quite forgiven the receiver. +</p> + +<p> +Speaking of receiving, I notice the receipts of hogs are pretty light. +Hold your lard prices up stiff to the market. It looks to me as if +that Milwaukee crowd was getting under the February delivery. +</p> + +<p> +Your affectionate father, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +JOHN GRAHAM. +</p> + +<p> +P.S.—You've got to square me with Helen. +</p> + + +<hr> + + +<a name="CHVI"></a><p class="ctr"> +No. 6 +</p> + +<p class="addindent"> +From John Graham, at the Waldorf-Astoria, New York, to his son, +Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The young man has +written describing the magnificent wedding presents that are being +received, and hinting discreetly that it would not come amiss if he +knew what shape the old man's was going to take, as he needs the +money. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +VI +</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> +NEW YORK, December 12, 189-. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Dear Pierrepont</i>: These fellows at the branch house here have been +getting altogether too blamed refined to suit me in their ideas of +what's a fair day's work, so I'm staying over a little longer than I +had intended, in order to ring the rising bell for them and to get +them back into good Chicago habits. The manager started in to tell me +that you couldn't do any business here before nine or ten in the +morning—and I raised that boy myself! +</p> + +<p> +We had a short season of something that wasn't exactly prayer, but was +just as earnest, and I think he sees the error of his ways. He seemed +to feel that just because he was getting a fair share of the business +I ought to be satisfied, but I don't want any half-sports out gunning +with me. It's the fellow that settles himself in his blind before the +ducks begin to fly who gets everything that's coming to his decoys. I +reckon we'll have to bring this man back to Chicago and give him a +beef house where he has to report at five before he can appreciate +what a soft thing it is to get down to work at eight. +</p> + +<p> +I'm mighty glad to hear you're getting so many wedding presents that +you think you'll have enough to furnish your house, only you don't +want to fingermark them looking to see it a hundred-thousand-dollar +check from me ain't slipped in among them, because it ain't. +</p> + +<p> +I intend to give you a present, all right, but there's a pretty wide +margin for guessing between a hundred thousand dollars and the real +figures. And you don't want to feel too glad about what you've got, +either, because you're going to find out that furnishing a house with +wedding presents is equivalent to furnishing it on the installment +plan. Along about the time you want to buy a go-cart for the twins, +you'll discover that you'll have to make Tommy's busted old +baby-carriage do, because you've got to use the money to buy a +tutti-frutti ice-cream spoon for the young widow who sent you a +doormat with "Welcome" on it. And when she gets it, the young widow +will call you that idiotic Mr. Graham, because she's going to have +sixteen other tutti-frutti ice-cream spoons, and her doctor's told her +that if she eats sweet things she'll have to go in the front door like +a piano—sideways. +</p> + +<p> +Then when you get the junk sorted over and your house furnished with +it, you're going to sit down to dinner on some empty soap-boxes, with +the soup in cut-glass finger-bowls, and the fish on a hand-painted +smoking-set, and the meat on dinky, little egg-shell salad plates, with +ice-cream forks and fruit knives to eat with. You'll spend most of that +meal wondering why somebody didn't send you one of those hundred and +sixteen piece five-dollar-ninety-eight-marked-down-from-six sets of +china. While I don't mean to say that the average wedding present +carries a curse instead of a blessing, it could usually repeat a few +cuss-words if it had a retentive memory. +</p> + +<p> +Speaking of wedding presents and hundred-thousand-dollar checks +naturally brings to mind my old friend Hamilton Huggins—Old Ham they +called him at the Yards—and the time he gave his son, Percival, a +million dollars. +</p> + +<p> +Take him by and large, Ham was as slick as a greased pig. Before he +came along, the heft of the beef hearts went into the fertilizer +tanks, but he reasoned out that they weren't really tough, but that +their firmness was due to the fact that the meat in them was naturally +condensed, and so he started putting them out in his celebrated +condensed mincemeat at ten cents a pound. Took his pigs' livers, too, +and worked 'em up into a genuine Strasburg pâté de foie gras that made +the wild geese honk when they flew over his packing-house. Discovered +that a little chopped cheek-meat at two cents a pound was a blamed +sight healthier than chopped pork at six. Reckoned that by running +twenty-five per cent. of it into his pork sausage he saved a hundred +thousand people every year from becoming cantankerous old dyspeptics. +</p> + +<p> +Ham was simply one of those fellows who not only have convolutions in +their brains, but kinks and bow-knots as well, and who can believe +that any sort of a lie is gospel truth just so it is manufactured and +labeled on their own premises. I confess I ran out a line of those +pigs' liver pâtés myself, but I didn't do it because I was such a +patriot that I couldn't stand seeing the American flag insulted by a +lot of Frenchmen getting a dollar for a ten-cent article, and that +simply because geese have smaller livers than pigs. +</p> + +<p> +For all Old Ham was so shrewd at the Yards, he was one of those +fellows who begin losing their common-sense at the office door, and +who reach home doddering and blithering. Had a fool wife with the +society bug in her head, and as he had the one-of-our-leading-citizens +bug in his, they managed between them to raise a lovely warning for a +Sunday-school superintendent in their son, Percival. +</p> + +<p> +Percy was mommer's angel boy with the sunny curls, who was to be +raised a gentleman and to be "shielded from the vulgar surroundings +and coarse associations of her husband's youth," and he was proud +popper's pet, whose good times weren't going to be spoiled by a +narrow-minded old brute of a father, or whose talents weren't going to +be smothered in poverty, the way the old man's had been. No, sir-ee, +Percy was going to have all the money he wanted, with the whisky +bottle always in sight on the sideboard and no limit on any game he +wanted to sit in, so that he'd grow up a perfect little gentleman and +know how to use things instead of abusing them. +</p> + +<p> +I want to say right here that I've heard a good deal of talk in my +time about using whisky, and I've met a good many thousand men who +bragged when they were half loaded that they could quit at any moment, +but I've never met one of these fellows who would while the whisky +held out. It's been my experience that when a fellow begins to brag +that he can quit whenever he wants to, he's usually reached the point +where he can't. +</p> + +<p> +Naturally, Percy had hardly got the pap-rag out of his mouth before he +learned to smoke cigarettes, and he could cuss like a little gentleman +before he went into long pants. Took the four-years' sporting course +at Harvard, with a postgraduate year of draw-poker and natural +history—observing the habits and the speed of the ponies in their +native haunts. Then, just to prove that he had paresis, Old Ham gave +him a million dollars outright and a partnership in his business. +</p> + +<p> +Percy started in to learn the business at the top—absorbing as much +of it as he could find room for between ten and four, with two hours +out for lunch—but he never got down below the frosting. The one thing +that Old Ham wouldn't let him touch was the only thing about the +business which really interested Percy—the speculating end of it. But +everything else he did went with the old gentleman, and he was always +bragging that Percy was growing up into a big, broad-gauged merchant. +He got mighty mad with me when I told him that Percy was just a +ready-made success who was so small that he rattled round in his seat, +and that he'd better hold in his horses, as there were a good many +humps in the road ahead of him. +</p> + +<p> +Old Ham was a sure-thing packer, like myself, and let speculating +alone, never going into the market unless he had the goods or knew +where he could get them; but when he did plunge into the pit, he +usually climbed out with both hands full of money and a few odd +thousand-dollar bills sticking in his hair. So when he came to me one +day and pointed out that Prime Steam Lard at eight cents for the +November delivery, and the West alive with hogs, was a crime against +the consumer, I felt inclined to agree with him, and we took the bear +side of the market together. +</p> + +<p> +Somehow, after we had gone short a big line, the law of supply and +demand quit business. There were plenty of hogs out West, and all the +packers were making plenty of lard, but people seemed to be frying +everything they ate, and using lard in place of hair-oil, for the +Prime Steam moved out as fast as it was made. The market simply sucked +up our short sales and hollered for more, like a six-months shoat at +the trough. Pound away as we would, the November option moved slowly +up to 8½, to 9, to 9½. Then, with delivery day only six weeks +off, it jumped overnight to 10, and closed firm at 12¼. We stood to +lose a little over a million apiece right there, and no knowing what +the crowd that was under the market would gouge us for in the end. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as 'Change closed that day, Old Ham and I got together and +gave ourselves one guess apiece to find out where we stood, and we +both guessed right—in a corner. +</p> + +<p> +We had a little over a month to get together the lard to deliver on +our short sales or else pay up, but we hadn't had enough experience in +the paying-up business to feel like engaging in it. So that afternoon +we wired our agents through the West to start anything that looked +like a hog toward Chicago, and our men in the East to ship us every +tierce of Prime Steam they could lay their hands on. Then we made +ready to try out every bit of hog fat, from a grease spot up, that we +could find in the country. And all the time the price kept climbing on +us like a nigger going up a persimmon tree, till it was rising +seventeen cents. +</p> + +<p> +So far the bull crowd had managed to keep their identity hidden, and +we'd been pretty modest about telling the names of the big bears, +because we weren't very proud of the way we'd been caught napping, and +because Old Ham was mighty anxious that Percy shouldn't know that his +safe old father had been using up the exception to his rule of no +speculation. +</p> + +<p> +It was a near thing for us, but the American hog responded nobly—and +a good many other critters as well, I suspect—and when it came on +toward delivery day we found that we had the actual lard to turn over +on our short contracts, and some to spare. But Ham and I had lost a +little fat ourselves, and we had learned a whole lot about the +iniquity of selling goods that you haven't got, even when you do it +with the benevolent intention of cheapening an article to the +consumer. +</p> + +<p> +We got together at his office in the Board of Trade building to play +off the finals with the bull crowd. We'd had inspectors busy all night +passing the lard which we'd gathered together and which was arriving +by boat-loads and train-loads. Then, before 'Change opened, we passed +the word around through our brokers that there wasn't any big short +interest left, and to prove it they pointed to the increase in the +stocks of Prime Steam in store and gave out the real figures on what +was still in transit. By the time the bell rang for trading on the +floor we had built the hottest sort of a fire under the market, and +thirty minutes after the opening the price of the November option had +melted down flat to twelve cents. +</p> + +<p> +We gave the bulls a breathing space there, for we knew we had them all +nicely rounded up in the killing-pens, and there was no hurry. But on +toward noon, when things looked about right, we jumped twenty brokers +into the pit, all selling at once and offering in any sized lots for +which they could find takers. It was like setting off a pack of +firecrackers—biff! bang! bang! our brokers gave it to them, and when +the smoke cleared away the bits of that busted corner were scattered +all over the pit, and there was nothing left for us to do but to pick +up our profits; for we had swung a loss of millions over to the other +side of the ledger. +</p> + +<p> +Just as we were sending word to our brokers to steady the market so as +to prevent a bad panic and failures, the door of the private office +flew open, and in bounced Mr. Percy, looking like a hound dog that had +lapped up a custard pie while the cook's back was turned and is +hunting for a handy bed to hide under. Had let his cigarette go +out—he wore one in his face as regularly as some fellows wear a pink +in their buttonhole—and it was drooping from his lower lip, instead +of sticking up under his nose in the old sporty, sassy way. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, gov'ner!" he cried as he slammed the door behind him; "the +market's gone to hell." +</p> + +<p> +"Quite so, my son, quite so," nodded Old Ham approvingly; "it's the +bottomless pit to-day, all right, all right." +</p> + +<p> +I saw it coming, but it came hard. Percy sputtered and stuttered and +swallowed it once or twice, and then it broke loose in: +</p> + +<p> +"And oh! gov'ner, I'm caught—in a horrid hole—you've got to help me +out!" +</p> + +<p> +"Eh! what's that!" exclaimed the old man, losing his +just-after-a-hearty-meal expression. "What's +that—caught—speculating, after what I've said to you! Don't tell me +that you're one of that bull crowd—Don't you dare do it, sir." +</p> + +<p> +"Ye-es," and Percy's voice was scared back to a whisper; "yes; and +what's more, I'm the whole bull crowd—the Great Bull they've all been +talking and guessing about." +</p> + +<p> +Great Scott! but I felt sick. Here we'd been, like two pebbles in a +rooster's gizzard, grinding up a lot of corn that we weren't going to +get any good of. I itched to go for that young man myself, but I knew +this was one of those holy moments between father and son when an +outsider wants to pull his tongue back into its cyclone cellar. And +when I looked at Ham, I saw that no help was needed, for the old man +was coming out of his twenty-five-years' trance over Percy. He didn't +say a word for a few minutes, just kept boring into the young man with +his eyes, and though Percy had a cheek like brass, Ham's stare went +through it as easy as a two-inch bit goes into boiler-plate. Then, +"Take that cigaroot out of your mouth," he bellered. "What d'ye mean +by coming into my office smoking cigareets?" +</p> + +<p> +Percy had always smoked whatever he blamed pleased, wherever he blamed +pleased before, though Old Ham wouldn't stand for it from any one +else. But because things have been allowed to go all wrong for +twenty-five years, it's no reason why they should be allowed to go +wrong for twenty-five years and one day; and I was mighty glad to see +Old Ham rubbing the sleep out of his eyes at last. +</p> + +<p> +"But, gov'ner," Percy began, throwing the cigarette away, "I really—" +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you but me; I won't stand it. And don't you call me gov'ner. I +won't have your low-down street slang in my office. So you're the +great bull, eh? you bull-pup! you bull in a china shop! The great +bull-calf, you mean. Where'd you get the money for all this +cussedness? Where'd you get the money? Tell me that. Spit it +out—quick—I say." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I've got a million dollars," Percy dribbled out. +</p> + +<p> +"Had a million dollars, and it was my good money," the old man moaned. +</p> + +<p> +"And an interest in the business, you know." +</p> + +<p> +"Yep; I oughter. I s'pose you hocked that." +</p> + +<p> +"Not exactly; but it helped me to raise a little money." +</p> + +<p> +"You bet it helped you; but where'd you get the rest? Where'd you +raise the money to buy all this cash lard and ship it abroad? Where'd +you get it? You tell me that." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, ah—the banks—loaned—me—a—-good deal." +</p> + +<p> +"On your face." +</p> + +<p> +"Not exactly that—but they thought—inferred—that you were +interested with me—and without—" Percy's tongue came to a full stop +when he saw the old man's face. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh! they did, eh! they did, eh!" Ham exploded. "Tried to bust your +poor old father, did you! Would like to see him begging his bread, +would you, or piking in the bucket-shops for five-dollar bills! Wasn't +satisfied with soaking him with his own million! Couldn't rest when +you'd swatted him with his own business! Wanted to bat him over the +head with his own credit! And now you come whining around—" +</p> + +<div class="img"><img src="Images/04.jpg" alt=""Tried to bust your poor old father"" width="306" height="245"></div> +<p class="caption"> +"Tried to bust your poor old father" +</p> + +<p> +"But, dad—" +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you dad me, dad-fetch you—don't you try any Absalom business +on me. You're caught by the hair, all right, and I'm not going to chip +in for any funeral expenses." +</p> + +<p> +Right here I took a hand myself, because I was afraid Ham was going to +lose his temper, and that's one thing you can't always pick up in the +same place that you left it. So I called Ham off, and told Percy to +come back in an hour with his head broker and I'd protect his trades +in the meanwhile. Then I pointed out to the old man that we'd make a +pretty good thing on the deal, even after we'd let Percy out, as he'd +had plenty of company on the bull side that could pay up; and anyway, +that the boy was a blamed sight more important than the money, and +here was the chance to make a man of him. +</p> + +<p> +We were all ready for Mister Percy when he came back, and Ham got +right down to business. +</p> + +<p> +"Young man, I've decided to help you out of this hole," he began. +</p> + +<p> +Percy chippered right up. "Thank you, sir," he said. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, I'm going to help you," the old man went on. "I'm going to take +all your trades off your hands and assume all your obligations at the +banks." +</p> + +<p> +"Thank you, sir." +</p> + +<p> +"Stop interrupting when I'm talking, I'm going to take up all your +obligations, and you're going to pay me three million dollars for +doing it. When the whole thing's cleaned up that will probably leave +me a few hundred thousand in the hole, but I'm going to do the +generous thing by you." +</p> + +<p> +Percy wasn't so chipper now. "But, father," he protested, "I haven't +got three million dollars; and you know very well I can't possibly +raise any three million dollars." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, you can," said Ham. "There's the million I gave you: that makes +one. There's your interest in the business; I'll buy it back for a +million: that makes two. And I'll take your note at five per cent, for +the third million. A fair offer, Mr. Graham?" +</p> + +<p> +"Very liberal, indeed, Mr. Huggins," I answered. +</p> + +<p> +"But I won't have anything to live on, let alone any chance to pay you +back, if you take my interest in the business away," pleaded Percy. +</p> + +<p> +"I've thought of that, too," said his father, "and I'm going to give +you a job. The experience you've had in this campaign ought to make +you worth twenty-five dollars a week to us in our option department. +Then you can board at home for five dollars a week, and pay ten more +on your note. That'll leave you ten per for clothes and extras." +</p> + +<p> +Percy wriggled and twisted and tried tears. Talked a lot of flip-flap +flub-doodle, but Ham was all through with the proud-popper business, +and the young man found him as full of knots as a hickory root, and +with a hide that would turn the blade of an ax. +</p> + +<p> +Percy was simply in the fix of the skunk that stood on the track and +humped up his back at the lightning express—there was nothing left of +him except a deficit and the stink he'd kicked up. And a fellow can't +dictate terms with those assets. In the end he left the room with a +ring in his nose. +</p> + +<p> +After all, there was more in Percy than cussedness, for when he +finally decided that it was a case of root hog or die with him, he +turned in and rooted. It took him ten years to get back into his +father's confidence and a partnership, and he was still paying on the +million-dollar note when the old man died and left him his whole +fortune. It would have been cheaper for me in the end if I had let the +old man disinherit him, because when Percy ran that Mess Pork corner +three years ago, he caught me short a pretty good line and charged me +two dollars a barrel more than any one else to settle. Explained that +he needed the money to wipe out the unpaid balance of a million-dollar +note that he'd inherited from his father. +</p> + +<p> +I simply mention Percy to show why I'm a little slow to regard members +of my family as charitable institutions that I should settle +endowments on. If there's one thing I like less than another, it's +being regarded as a human meal-ticket. What is given to you always +belongs to some one else, and if the man who gave it doesn't take it +back, some fellow who doesn't have to have things given to him is apt +to come along and run away with it. But what you earn is your own, and +apt to return your affection for it with interest—pretty good +interest. +</p> + +<p> +Your affectionate father, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +JOHN GRAHAM. +</p> + +<p> +P.S.—I forgot to say that I had bought a house on Michigan Avenue for +Helen, but there's a provision in the deed that she can turn you out +if you don't behave. +</p> + + + +<hr> + +<a name="CHVII"></a><p class="ctr"> +No. 7 +</p> + +<p class="addindent"> +From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, +Pierrepont, at Yemassee-on-the-Tallahassee. The young man is now in +the third quarter of the honeymoon, and the old man has decided that +it is time to bring him fluttering down to earth. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +VII +</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> +CHICAGO, January 17, 189-. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Dear Pierrepont</i>: After you and Helen had gone off looking as if +you'd just bought seats on 'Change and been baptized into full +membership with all the sample bags of grain that were handy, I found +your new mother-in-law out in the dining-room, and, judging by the +plates around her, she was carrying in stock a full line of staple and +fancy groceries and delicatessen. When I struck her she was crying +into her third plate of ice cream, and complaining bitterly to the +butler because the mould had been opened so carelessly that some salt +had leaked into it. +</p> + +<div class="img"><img src="Images/05.jpg" alt="Crying into her third plate of ice cream" width="210" height="376"></div> +<p class="caption"> +Crying into her third plate of ice cream +</p> + +<p> +Of course, I started right in to be sociable and to cheer her up, but +I reckon I got my society talk a little mixed—I'd been one of the +pall-bearers at Josh Burton's funeral the day before—and I told her +that she must bear up and eat a little something to keep up her +strength, and to remember that our loss was Helen's gain. +</p> + +<p> +Now, I don't take much stock in all this mother-in-law talk, though +I've usually found that where there's so much smoke there's a little +fire; but I'm bound to say that Helen's ma came back at me with a +sniff and a snort, and made me feel sorry that I'd intruded on her +sacred grief. Told me that a girl of Helen's beauty and advantages had +naturally been very, very popular, and greatly sought after. Said that +she had been received in the very best society in Europe, and might +have worn strawberry leaves if she'd chosen, meaning, I've since found +out, that she might have married a duke. +</p> + + +<p> +I tried to soothe the old lady, and to restore good feeling by +allowing that wearing leaves had sort of gone out of fashion with the +Garden of Eden, and that I liked Helen better in white satin, but +everything I said just seemed to enrage her the more. Told me plainly +that she'd thought, and hinted that she'd hoped, right up to last +month, that Helen was going to marry a French nobleman, the Count de +Somethingerino or other, who was crazy about her. So I answered that +we'd both had a narrow escape, because I'd been afraid for a year that +I might wake up any morning and find myself the father-in-law of a +Crystal Slipper chorus-girl. Then, as it looked as if the old lady was +going to bust a corset-string in getting out her answer, I modestly +slipped away, leaving her leaking brine and acid like a dill pickle +that's had a bite taken out of it. +</p> + +<p> +Good mothers often make bad mothers-in-law, because they usually +believe that, no matter whom their daughters marry, they could have +gone farther and fared better. But it struck me that Helen's ma has +one of those retentive memories and weak mouths—the kind of memory +that never loses anything it should forget, and the kind of mouth that +can't retain a lot of language which it shouldn't lose. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, you want to honor your mother-in-law, that your days may be +long in the land; but you want to honor this one from a distance, for +the same reason. Otherwise, I'm afraid you'll hear a good deal about +that French count, and how hard it is for Helen to have to associate +with a lot of mavericks from the Stock Yards, when she might be +running with blooded stock on the other side. And if you glance up +from your morning paper and sort of wonder out loud whether Corbett or +Fitzsimmons is the better man, mother-in-law will glare at you over +the top of her specs and ask if you don't think it's invidious to make +any comparisons if they're both striving, to lead earnest, Christian +lives. Then, when you come home at night, you'll be apt to find your +wife sniffing your breath when you kiss her, to see if she can catch +that queer, heavy smell which mother has noticed on it; or looking at +you slant-eyed when she feels some letters in your coat, and wondering +if what mother says is true, and if men who've once taken chorus-girls +to supper never really recover from the habit. +</p> + +<p> +On general principles, it's pretty good doctrine that two's a company +and three's a crowd, except when the third is a cook. But I should say +that when the third is Helen's ma it's a mob, out looking for a chance +to make rough-house. A good cook, a good wife and a good job will make +a good home anywhere; but you add your mother-in-law, and the first +thing you know you've got two homes, and one of them is being run on +alimony. +</p> + +<p> +You want to remember that, beside your mother-in-law, you're a +comparative stranger to your wife. After you and Helen have lived +together for a year, you ought to be so well acquainted that she'll +begin to believe that you know almost as much as mamma; but during the +first few months of married life there are apt to be a good many tie +votes on important matters, and if mother-in-law is on the premises +she is generally going to break the tie by casting the deciding vote +with daughter. A man can often get the best of one woman, or ten men, +but not of two women, when one of the two is mother-in-law. +</p> + +<p> +When a young wife starts housekeeping with her mother too handy, it's +like running a business with a new manager and keeping the old one +along to see how things go. It's not in human nature that the old +manager, even with the best disposition in the world, shouldn't knock +the new one a little, and you're Helen's new manager. When I want to +make a change, I go about it like a crab—get rid of the old shell +first, and then plunge right in and begin to do business with the new +skin. It may be a little tender and open to attack at first, but it +doesn't take long to toughen up when it finds out that the +responsibility of protecting my white meat is on it. +</p> + +<p> +You start a woman with sense to making mistakes and you've started her +to learning common-sense; but you let some one else shoulder her +natural responsibilities and keep her from exercising her brain, and +it'll be fat-witted before she's forty. A lot of girls find it mighty +handy to start with mother to look after the housekeeping and later to +raise the baby; but by and by, when mamma has to quit, they don't +understand that the butcher has to be called down regularly for +leaving those heavy ends on the steak or running in the shoulder chops +on you, and that when Willie has the croup she mustn't give the little +darling a stiff hot Scotch, or try to remove the phlegm from his +throat with a button-hook. +</p> + +<p> +There are a lot of women in this world who think that there's only one +side to the married relation, and that's their side. When one of them +marries, she starts right out to train her husband into kind old +Carlo, who'll go downtown for her every morning and come home every +night, fetching a snug little basketful of money in his mouth and +wagging his tail as he lays it at her feet. Then it's a pat on the +head and "Nice doggie." And he's taught to stand around evenings, +retrieving her gloves and handkerchief, and snapping up with a pleased +licking of his chops any little word that she may throw to him. But +you let him start in to have a little fun scratching and stretching +himself, or pawing her, and it's "Charge, Carlo!" and "Bad doggie!" +</p> + +<p> +Of course, no man ever believes when he marries that he's going to +wind up as kind Carlo, who droops his head so that the children can +pull his ears, and who sticks up his paw so as to make it easier for +his wife to pull his leg. But it's simpler than you think. +</p> + +<p> +As long as fond fathers slave and ambitious mothers sacrifice so that +foolish daughters can hide the petticoats of poverty under a silk +dress and crowd the doings of cheap society into the space in their +heads which ought to be filled with plain, useful knowledge, a lot of +girls are going to grow up with the idea that getting married means +getting rid of care and responsibility instead of assuming it. +</p> + +<p> +A fellow can't play the game with a girl of this sort, because she +can't play fair. He wants her love and a wife; she wants a provider, +not a lover, and she takes him as a husband because she can't draw his +salary any other way. But she can't return his affection, because her +love is already given to another; and when husband and wife both love +the same person, and that person is the wife, it's usually a life +sentence at hard labor for the husband. If he wakes up a little and +tries to assert himself after he's been married a year or so, she +shudders and sobs until he sees what a brute he is; or if that doesn't +work, and he still pretends to have a little spirit, she goes off into +a rage and hysterics, and that usually brings him to heel again. It's +a mighty curious thing how a woman who has the appetite and instincts +of a turkey—buzzard will often make her husband believe that she's as +high-strung and delicate as a canary-bird! +</p> + +<p> +It's been my experience that both men and women can fool each other +before marriage, and that women can keep right along fooling men after +marriage, but that as soon as the average man gets married he gets +found out. After a woman has lived in the same house with a man for a +year, she knows him like a good merchant knows his stock, down to any +shelf-worn and slightly damaged morals which he may be hiding behind +fresher goods in the darkest corner of his immortal soul. But even if +she's married to a fellow who's so mean that he'd take the pennies off +a dead man's eyes (not because he needed the money, but because he +hadn't the change handy for a two-cent stamp), she'll never own up to +the worst about him, even to herself, till she gets him into a divorce +court. +</p> + +<p> +I simply mention these things in a general way. Helen has shown signs +of loving you, and you've never shown any symptoms of hating yourself, +so I'm not really afraid that you're going to get the worst of it now. +So far as I can see, your mother-in-law is the only real trouble that +you have married. But don't you make the mistake of criticizing her to +Helen or of quarrelling with her. I'll attend to both for the family. +You simply want to dodge when she leads with the right, take your full +ten seconds on the floor, and come back with your left cheek turned +toward her, though, of course, you'll yank it back out of reach just +before she lands on it. There's nothing like using a little diplomacy +in this world, and, so far as women are concerned, diplomacy is +knowing when to stay away. And a diplomatist is one who lets the other +fellow think he's getting his way, while all the time <i>he's</i> having +his own. It never does any special harm to let people have their way +with their mouths. +</p> + +<p> +What you want to do is to keep mother-in-law from mixing up in your +family affairs until after she gets used to the disgrace of having a +pork-packer for a son-in-law, and Helen gets used to pulling in +harness with you. Then mother'll mellow up into a nice old lady who'll +brag about you to the neighbors. But until she gets to this point, +you've got to let her hurt your feelings without hurting hers. Don't +you ever forget that Helen's got a mother-in-law, too, and that it's +some one you think a heap of. +</p> + +<p> +Whenever I hear of a fellow's being found out by his wife, it always +brings to mind the case of Dick Hodgkins, whom I knew when I was a +young fellow, back in Missouri. Dickie was one of a family of twelve, +who all ran a little small any way you sized them up, and he was the +runt. Like most of these little fellows, when he came to match up for +double harness, he picked out a six-footer, Kate Miggs. Used to call +her Honeybunch, I remember, and she called him Doodums. +</p> + +<p> +Honeybunch was a good girl, but she was as strong as a six-mule team, +and a cautious man just naturally shied away from her. Was a pretty +free stepper in the mazes of the dance, and once, when she was +balancing partners with Doodums, she kicked out sort of playful to +give him a love pat and fetched him a clip with her tootsey that gave +him water on the kneepan. It ought to have been a warning to Doodums, +but he was plumb infatuated, and went around pretending that he'd been +kicked by a horse. After that the boys used to make Honeybunch mighty +mad when she came out of dark corners with Doodums, by feeling him to +see if any of his ribs were broken. Still he didn't take the hint, and +in the end she led him to the altar. +</p> + +<p> +We started in to give them a lovely shivaree after the wedding, +beginning with a sort of yell which had been invented by the only +fellow in town who had been to college. +</p> + +<p> +As I remember, it ran something like this: +</p> + +<p class="quote"> + <i>Hun, hun, hunch!<br> + Bun, bun, bunch!<br> + Funny, funny!<br> + Honey, honey!<br> + Funny Honeybunch!</i> +</p> + +<p> +But as soon as we got this off, and before we could begin on the +dishpan chorus, Honeybunch came at us with a couple of bed-slats and +cleaned us all out. +</p> + +<p> +Before he had married, Doodums had been one of half a dozen half-baked +sports who drank cheap whisky and played expensive poker at the +Dutchman's; and after he'd held Honeybunch in his lap evenings for a +month, he reckoned one night that he'd drop down street and look in on +the boys. Honeybunch reckoned not, and he didn't press the matter, but +after they'd gone to bed and she'd dropped off to sleep, he slipped +into his clothes and down the waterspout to the ground. He sat up till +two o'clock at the Dutchman's, and naturally, the next morning he had +a breath like a gasoline runabout, and looked as if he'd been +attending a successful coon-hunt in the capacity of the coon. +</p> + +<p> +Honeybunch smelt his breath and then she smelt a mouse, but she wasn't +much of a talker and she didn't ask any questions—of him. But she had +brother Jim make some inquiries, and a few days later, when Doodums +complained of feeling all petered out and wanted to go to bed early, +she was ready for him. +</p> + +<p> +Honeybunch wasn't any invalid, and when she went to bed it was to +sleep, so she rigged up a simple little device in the way of an alarm +and dropped off peacefully, while Doodums pretended to. +</p> + +<p> +When she began to snore in her upper register and to hit the high C, +he judged the coast was clear, and leaped lightly out of bed. Even +before he'd struck the floor he knew there'd been a horrible mistake +somewhere, for he felt a tug as if he'd hooked a hundred-pound +catfish. There was an awful ripping and tearing sound, something +fetched loose, and his wife was sitting up in bed blinking at him in +the moonlight. It seemed that just before she went to sleep she'd +pinned her nightgown to his with a safety pin, which wasn't such a bad +idea for a simple, trusting, little village maiden. +</p> + +<p> +"Was you wantin' anything, Duckie Doodums?" she asked in a voice like +the running of sap in maple-sugar time. +</p> + +<p> +"N-n-nothin' but a drink of water, Honeybunch sweetness," he stammered +back. +</p> +<div class="img"><img src="Images/06.jpg" alt=""N-n-nothin' but a drink of water"" width="164" height="361"></div> + +<p class="caption"> +"N-n-nothin' but a drink of water" +</p> + +<p> +"You're sure you ain't mistook in your thirst and that it ain't a +suddint cravin' for licker, and that you ain't sort of p'intin' down +the waterspout for the Dutchman's, Duckie Doodums?" +</p> + +<p> +"Shorely not, Honeybunch darlin'," he finally fetched up, though he +was hardly breathing. +</p> + +<p> +"Because your ma told me that you was given to somnambulasticatin' in +your sleep, and that I must keep you tied up nights or you'd wake up +some mornin' at the foot of a waterspout with your head bust open and +a lot of good licker spilt out on the grass." +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you love your Doodums anymore?" was all Dickie could find to +say to this; but Honeybunch had too much on her mind to stop and swap +valentines just then. +</p> + +<p> +"You wouldn't deceive your Honeybunch, would you, Duckie Doodums?" +</p> + +<p> +"I shorely would not." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, don't you do it, Duckie Doodums, because it would break my +heart; and if you should break my heart I'd just naturally bust your +head. Are you listenin', Doodums?" +</p> + +<p> +Doodums was listening. +</p> + +<p> +"Then you come back to bed and stay there." +</p> + +<p> +Doodums never called his wife Honeybunch after that. Generally it was +Kate, and sometimes it was Kitty, and when she wasn't around it was +usually Kitty-cat. But he minded better than anything I ever met on +less than four legs. +</p> + +<p> +Your affectionate father, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +JOHN GRAHAM. +</p> + +<p> +P.S.—You might tear up this letter. +</p> + + + +<hr> + +<a name="CHVIII"></a><p class="ctr"> +No. 8 +</p> + +<p class="addindent"> +From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, +Pierrepont, at Yemassee-on-the-Tallahassee. In replying to his +father's hint that it is time to turn his thoughts from love to lard, +the young man has quoted a French sentence, and the old man has been +both pained and puzzled by it. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +VIII +</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> +CHICAGO, January 24, 189-. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Dear Pierrepont</i>: I had to send your last letter to the fertilizer +department to find out what it was all about. We've got a clerk there +who's an Oxford graduate, and who speaks seven languages for fifteen +dollars a week, or at the rate of something more than two dollars a +language. Of course, if you're such a big thinker that your ideas rise +to the surface too fast for one language to hold 'em all, it's a +mighty nice thing to know seven; but it's been my experience that +seven spread out most men so thin that they haven't anything special +to say in any of them. These fellows forget that while life's a +journey, it isn't a palace-car trip for most of us, and that if they +hit the trail packing a lot of weight for which they haven't any +special use, they're not going to get very far. You learn men and what +men should do, and how they should do it, and then if you happen to +have any foreigners working for you, you can hire a fellow at fifteen +per to translate hustle to 'em into their own fool language. It's +always been my opinion that everybody spoke American while the tower +of Babel was building, and that the Lord let the good people keep +right on speaking it. So when you've got anything to say to me, I want +you to say it in language that will grade regular on the Chicago Board +of Trade. +</p> + +<p> +Some men fail from knowing too little, but more fail from knowing too +much, and still more from knowing it all. It's a mighty good thing to +understand French if you can use it to some real purpose, but when all +the good it does a fellow is to help him understand the foreign +cuss-words in a novel, or to read a story which is so tough that it +would make the Queen's English or any other ladylike language blush, +he'd better learn hog-Latin! He can be just the same breed of yellow +dog in it, and it don't take so much time to pick it up. +</p> + +<p> +Never ask a man what he knows, but what he can do. A fellow may know +everything that's happened since the Lord started the ball to rolling, +and not be able to do anything to help keep it from stopping. But when +a man can do anything, he's bound to know something worth while. Books +are all right, but dead men's brains are no good unless you mix a live +one's with them. +</p> + +<p> +It isn't what a man's got in the bank, but what he's got in his head, +that makes him a great merchant. Rob a miser's safe and he's broke; +but you can't break a big merchant with a jimmy and a stick of +dynamite. The first would have to start again just where he +began—hoarding up pennies; the second would have his principal assets +intact. But accumulating knowledge or piling up money, just to have a +little more of either than the next fellow, is a fool game that no +broad-gauged man has time enough to sit in. Too much learning, like +too much money, makes most men narrow. +</p> + +<p> +I simply mention these things in a general way. You know blame well +that I don't understand any French, and so when you spring it on me +you are simply showing a customer the wrong line of goods. It's like +trying to sell our Pickled Luncheon Tidbits to a fellow in the black +belt who doesn't buy anything but plain dry-salt hog in hunks and +slabs. It makes me a little nervous for fear you'll be sending out a +lot of letters to the trade some day, asking them if their stock of +Porkuss Americanuss isn't running low. +</p> + +<p> +The world is full of bright men who know all the right things to say +and who say them in the wrong place. A young fellow always thinks that +if he doesn't talk he seems stupid, but it's better to shut up and +seem dull than to open up and prove yourself a fool. It's a pretty +good rule to show your best goods last. +</p> + +<p> +Whenever I meet one of those fellows who tells you all he knows, and a +good deal that he doesn't know, as soon as he's introduced to you, I +always think of Bill Harkness, who kept a temporary home for +broken-down horses—though he didn't call it that—back in Missouri. +Bill would pick up an old critter whose par value was the price of one +horse-hide, and after it had been pulled and shoved into his stable, +the boys would stand around waiting for crape to be hung on the door. +But inside a week Bill would be driving down Main Street behind that +horse, yelling Whoa! at the top of his voice while it tried to kick +holes in the dashboard. +</p> + +<p> +Bill had a theory that the Ten Commandments were suspended while a +horse-trade was going on, so he did most of his business with +strangers. Caught a Northerner nosing round his barn one day, and +inside of ten minutes the fellow was driving off behind what Bill +described as "the peartest piece of ginger and cayenne in Pike +County." Bill just made a free gift of it to the Yankee, he said, but +to keep the transaction from being a piece of pure charity he accepted +fifty dollars from him. +</p> + +<p> +The stranger drove all over town bragging of his bargain, until some +one casually called his attention to the fact that the mare was +stone-blind. Then he hiked back to Bill's and went for him in broken +Bostonese, winding up with: +</p> + +<p> +"What the skip-two-and-carry-one do you mean, you old +hold-your-breath-and-take-ten-swallows, by stealing my good money. +Didn't you know the horse was blind? Why didn't you tell me?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yep," Bill bit off from his piece of store plug; "I reckon I knew the +hoss was blind, but you see the feller I bought her of"—and he paused +to settle his chaw—"asked me not to mention it. You wouldn't have me +violate a confidence as affected the repertashun of a pore dumb +critter, and her of the opposite sect, would you?" And the gallant +Bill turned scornfully away from the stranger. +</p> + +<p> +There were a good many holes in Bill's methods, but he never leaked +information through them; and when I come across a fellow who doesn't +mention it when he's asked not to, I come pretty near letting him fix +his own salary. It's only a mighty big man that doesn't care whether +the people whom he meets believe that he's big; but the smaller a +fellow is, the bigger he wants to appear. He hasn't anything of his +own in his head that's of any special importance, so just to prove +that he's a trusted employee, and in the confidence of the boss, he +gives away everything he knows about the business, and, as that isn't +much, he lies a little to swell it up. It's a mighty curious thing how +some men will lie a little to impress people who are laughing at them; +will drink a little in order to sit around with people who want to get +away from them; and will even steal a little to "go into society" with +people who sneer at them. +</p> + +<p> +The most important animal in the world is a turkey-cock. You let him +get among the chickens on the manure pile behind the barn, with his +wings held down stiff, his tail feathers stuck up starchy, his +wish-bone poked out perky, and gobbling for room to show his fancy +steps, and he's a mighty impressive fowl. But a small boy with a rock +and a good aim can make him run a mile. When you see a fellow swelling +up and telling his firm's secrets, holler Cash! and you'll stampede +him back to his hall bedroom. +</p> + +<p> +I dwell a little on this matter of loose talking, because it breaks up +more firms and more homes than any other one thing I know. The father +of lies lives in Hell, but he spends a good deal of his time in +Chicago. You'll find him on the Board of Trade when the market's +wobbling, saying that the Russians are just about to eat up Turkey, +and that it'll take twenty million bushels of our wheat to make the +bread for the sandwich; and down in the street, asking if you knew +that the cashier of the Teenth National was leading a double life as a +single man in the suburbs and a singular life for a married man in the +city; and out on Prairie Avenue, whispering that it's too bad Mabel +smokes Turkish cigarettes, for she's got such pretty curly hair; and +how sad it is that Daisy and Dan are going to separate, "but they do +say that he—sh! sh! hush; here she comes." Yet, when you come to wash +your pan of dirt, and the lies have all been carried off down the +flume, and you've got the color of the few particles of solid, +eighteen-carat truth left, you'll find it's the Sultan who's smoking +Turkish cigarettes; and that Mabel is trying cubebs for her catarrh; +and that the cashier of the Teenth National belongs to a whist club in +the suburbs and is the superintendent of a Sunday-school in the city; +and that Dan has put Daisy up to visiting her mother to ward off a +threatened swoop down from the old lady; and that the Czar hasn't done +a blame thing except to become the father of another girl baby. +</p> + +<p> +It's pretty hard to know how to treat a lie when it's about yourself. +You can't go out of your way to deny it, because that puts you on the +defensive; and sending the truth after a lie that's got a running +start is like trying to round up a stampeded herd of steers while the +scare is on them. Lies are great travellers, and welcome visitors in a +good many homes, and no questions asked. Truth travels slowly, has to +prove its identity, and then a lot of people hesitate to turn out an +agreeable stranger to make room for it. +</p> + +<p> +About the only way I know to kill a lie is to live the truth. When +your credit is doubted, don't bother to deny the rumors, but discount +your bills. When you are attacked unjustly, avoid the appearance of +evil, but avoid also the appearance of being too good—that is, better +than usual. A man can't be too good, but he can appear too good. +Surmise and suspicion feed on the unusual, and when a man goes about +his business along the usual rut, they soon fade away for lack of +nourishment. First and last every fellow gets a lot of unjust +treatment in this world, but when he's as old as I am and comes to +balance his books with life and to credit himself with the mean things +which weren't true that have been said about him, and to debit himself +with the mean things which were true that people didn't get on to or +overlooked, he'll find that he's had a tolerably square deal. This +world has some pretty rotten spots on its skin, but it's sound at the +core. +</p> + +<p> +There are two ways of treating gossip about other people, and they're +both good ways. One is not to listen to it, and the other is not to +repeat it. Then there's young Buck Pudden's wife's way, and that's +better than either, when you're dealing with some of these old heifers +who browse over the range all day, stuffing themselves with gossip +about your friends, and then round up at your house to chew the cud +and slobber fake sympathy over you. +</p> + +<p> +Buck wasn't a bad fellow at heart, for he had the virtue of trying to +be good, but occasionally he would walk in slippery places. Wasn't +very sure-footed, so he fell down pretty often, and when he fell from +grace it usually cracked the ice. Still, as he used to say, when he +shot at the bar mirrors during one of his periods of temporary +elevation, he paid for what he broke—cash for the mirrors and sweat +and blood for his cussedness. +</p> + +<p> +Then one day Buck met the only woman in the world—a mighty nice girl +from St. Jo—and she was hesitating over falling in love with him, +till the gossips called to tell her that he was a dear, lovely fellow, +and wasn't it too bad that he had such horrid habits? That settled it, +of course, and she married him inside of thirty days, so that she +could get right down to the business of reforming him. +</p> + +<p> +I don't, as a usual thing, take much stock in this marrying men to +reform them, because a man's always sure of a woman when he's married +to her, while a woman's never really afraid of losing a man till she's +got him. When you want to teach a dog new tricks, it's all right to +show him the biscuit first, but you'll usually get better results by +giving it to him after the performance. But Buck's wife fooled the +whole town and almost put the gossips out of business by keeping Buck +straight for a year. She allowed that what he'd been craving all the +time was a home and family, and that his rare-ups came from not having +'em. Then, like most reformers, she overdid it—went and had twins. +Buck thought he owned the town, of course, and that would have been +all right if he hadn't included the saloons among his real estate. Had +to take his drinks in pairs, too, and naturally, when he went home +that night and had another look at the new arrivals, he thought they +were quadruplets. +</p> + +<p> +Buck straightened right out the next day, went to his wife and told +her all about it, and that was the last time he ever had to hang his +head when he talked to her, for he never took another drink. You see, +she didn't reproach him, or nag him—simply said that she was mighty +proud of the way he'd held on for a year, and that she knew she could +trust him now for another ten. Man was made a little lower than the +angels, the Good Book says, and I reckon that's right; but he was made +a good while ago, and he hasn't kept very well. Yet there are a heap +of women in this world who are still right in the seraphim class. When +your conscience doesn't tell you what to do in a matter of right and +wrong, ask your wife. +</p> + +<p> +Naturally, the story of Buck's final celebration came to the gossips +like a thousand-barrel gusher to a drilling outfit that's been finding +dusters, and they went one at a time to tell Mrs. Buck all the +dreadful details and how sorry they were for her. She would just sit +and listen till they'd run off the story, and hemstitched it, and +embroidered it, and stuck fancy rosettes all over it. Then she'd smile +one of those sweet baby smiles that women give just before the +hair-pulling begins, and say: +</p> + +<p> +"Law, Mrs. Wiggleford"—the deacon's wife was the one who was +condoling with her at the moment—"people will talk about the best of +us. Seems as if no one is safe nowadays. Why, they lie about the +deacon, even. I know it ain't true, and you know it ain't true, but +only yesterday somebody was trying to tell me that it was right +strange how a professor and a deacon got that color in his beak, and +while it might be inflammatory veins or whatever he claimed it was, +she reckoned that, if he'd let some one else tend the alcohol barrel, +he wouldn't have to charge up so much of his stock to leakage and +evaporation." +</p> + +<p> +Of course, Mrs. Buck had made up the story about the deacon, because +every one knew that he was too mean to drink anything that he could +sell, but by the time Buck's wife had finished, Mrs. Wiggleford was so +busy explaining and defending him that she hadn't any further interest +in Buck's case. And each one that called was sent away with a special +piece of home scandal which Mrs. Buck had invented to keep her mind +from dwelling on her neighbor's troubles. +</p> + +<p> +She followed up her system, too, and in the end it got so that women +would waste good gossip before they'd go to her with it. For if the +pastor's wife would tell her "as a true friend" that the report that +she had gone to the theatre in St. Louis was causing a scandal, she'd +thank her for being so sweetly thoughtful, and ask if nothing was +sacred enough to be spared by the tongue of slander, though she, for +one, didn't believe that there was anything in the malicious talk that +the Doc was cribbing those powerful Sunday evening discourses from a +volume of Beecher's sermons. And when they'd press her for the name of +her informant, she'd say: "No, it was a lie; she knew it was a lie, +and no one who sat under the dear pastor would believe it; and they +mustn't dignify it by noticing it." As a matter of fact, no one who +sat under Doc Pottle would have believed it, for his sermons weren't +good enough to have been cribbed; and if Beecher could have heard one +of them he would have excommunicated him. +</p> + +<p> +Buck's wife knew how to show goods. When Buck himself had used up all +the cuss-words in Missouri on his conduct, she had sense enough to +know that his stock of trouble was full, and that if she wanted to get +a hold on him she mustn't show him stripes, but something in cheerful +checks. Yet when the trouble-hunters looked her up, she had a full +line of samples of their favorite commodity to show them. +</p> + +<p> +I simply mention these things in a general way. Seeing would naturally +be believing, if cross-eyed people were the only ones who saw crooked, +and hearing will be believing when deaf people are the only ones who +don't hear straight. It's a pretty safe rule, when you hear a heavy +yarn about any one, to allow a fair amount for tare, and then to +verify your weights. +</p> + +<p> +Your affectionate father, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +JOHN GRAHAM. +</p> + +<p> +P.S.—I think you'd better look in at a few of the branch houses on +your way home and see if you can't make expenses. +</p> + + + +<hr> + +<a name="CHIX"></a><p class="ctr"> +No. 9 +</p> + +<p class="addindent"> +From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, +Pierrepont, care of Graham & Company's brokers, Atlanta. Following the +old man's suggestion, the young man has rounded out the honeymoon into +a harvest moon, and is sending in some very satisfactory orders to the +house. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +IX +</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> +CHICAGO, February 1, 189-. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Dear Pierrepont</i>: Judging from the way the orders are coming in, I +reckon that you must be lavishing a little of your surplus ardor on +the trade. So long as you are in such good practise, and can look a +customer in the eye and make him believe that he's the only buyer you +ever really loved, you'd better not hurry home too fast. I reckon +Helen won't miss you for a few hours every day, but even if she should +it's a mighty nice thing to be missed, and she's right there where you +can tell her every night that you love her just the same; while the +only way in which you can express your unchanged affection for the +house is by sending us lots of orders. If you do that you needn't +bother to write and send us lots of love. +</p> + +<p> +The average buyer is a good deal like the heiress to a million dollars +who's been on the market for eight or ten years, not because there's +no demand for her, but because there's too much. Most girls whose +capital of good looks is only moderate, marry, and marry young, +because they're like a fellow on 'Change who's scalping the +market—not inclined to take chances, and always ready to make a quick +turn. Old maids are usually the girls who were so homely that they +never had an offer, or so good-looking that they carried their +matrimonial corner from one option to another till the new crop came +along and bust them. But a girl with a million dollars isn't a +speculative venture. She can advertise for sealed proposals on her +fiftieth birthday and be oversubscribed like an issue of 10 per cent. +Government bonds. There's no closed season on heiresses, and, +naturally, a bird that can't stick its head up without getting shot at +becomes a pretty wary old fowl. +</p> + +<p> +A buyer is like your heiress—he always has a lot of nice young +drummers flirting and fooling around him, but mighty few of them are +so much in earnest that they can convince him that their only chance +for happiness lies in securing his particular order. But you let one +of these dead-in-earnest boys happen along, and the first thing you +know he's persuaded the heiress that he loves her for herself alone or +has eloped from town with an order for a car-load of lard. +</p> + +<p> +A lot of young men start off in business with an idea that they must +arm themselves with the same sort of weapons that their competitors +carry. There's nothing in it. Fighting the devil with fire is all +foolishness, because that's the one weapon with which he's more expert +than any one else. I usually find that it's pretty good policy to +oppose suspicion with candor, foxiness with openness, indifference +with earnestness. When you deal squarely with a crooked man you scare +him to death, because he thinks you're springing some new and +extra-deep game on him. +</p> + +<p> +A fellow who's subject to cramps and chills has no business in the +water, but if you start to go in swimming, go in all over. Don't be +one of those chappies who prance along the beach, shivering and +showing their skinny shapes, and then dabble their feet in the surf, +pour a little sand in their hair, and think they've had a bath. +</p> + +<p> +You mustn't forget, though, that it's just as important to know when +to come out as when to dive in. I mention this because yesterday some +one who'd run across you at Yemassee told me that you and Helen were +exchanging the grip of the third degree under the breakfast-table, and +trying to eat your eggs with your left hands. Of course, this is all +very right and proper if you can keep it up, but I've known a good +many men who would kiss their wives on the honeymoon between swallows +of coffee and look like an ass a year later when she chirruped out at +the breakfast-table, "Do you love me, darling?" I'm just a little +afraid that you're one of those fellows who wants to hold his wife in +his lap during the first six months of his married life, and who, when +she asks him at the end of a year if he loves her, answers "Sure." I +may be wrong about this, but I've noticed a tendency on your part to +slop over a little, and a pail that slops over soon empties itself. +</p> + +<div class="img"><img src="Images/01.jpg" alt="Exchanging the grip of the third degree" width="367" height="246"></div> +<p class="caption">Exchanging the grip of the third degree</p> + +<p> +It's been my experience that most women try to prove their love by +talking about it, and most men by spending money. But when a +pocketbook or a mouth is opened too often nothing but trouble is left +in it. +</p> + +<p> +Don't forget the little attentions due your wife, but don't hurt the +grocer's feelings or treat the milkman with silent contempt in order +to give them to her. You can hock your overcoat before marriage to buy +violets for a girl, but when she has the run of your wardrobe you +can't slap your chest and explain that you stopped wearing it because +you're so warm-blooded. A sensible woman soon begins to understand +that affection can be expressed in porterhouse steaks as well as in +American beauties. But when Charlie, on twenty-five a week, marries a +fool, she pouts and says that he doesn't love her just the same +because he takes her to the theatre now in the street-cars, instead of +in a carriage, as he used to in those happy days before they were +married. As a matter of fact, this doesn't show that she's losing +Charlie's love, but that he's getting his senses back. It's been my +experience that no man can really attend to business properly when +he's chased to the office every morning by a crowd of infuriated +florists and livery-men. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, after a girl has spent a year of evenings listening to a +fellow tell her that his great ambition is to make her life one grand, +sweet song, it jars her to find the orchestra grunting and snoring +over the sporting extra some night along six months after the +ceremony. She stays awake and cries a little over this, so when he +sees her across the liver and bacon at breakfast, he forgets that he's +never told her before that she could look like anything but an angel, +and asks, "Gee, Mame, what makes your nose so red?" And that's the +place where a young couple begins to adjust itself to life as it's +lived on Michigan Avenue instead of in the story-books. +</p> + +<p> +There's no rule for getting through the next six months without going +back to mamma, except for the Brute to be as kind as he knows how to +be and the Angel as forgiving as she can be. But at the end of that +time a boy and girl with the right kind of stuff in them have been +graduated into a man and a woman. It's only calf love that's always +bellering about it. When love is full grown it has few words, and +sometimes it growls them out. +</p> + +<p> +I remember, when I was a youngster, hearing old Mrs. Hoover tell of +the trip she took with the Doc just after they were married. Even as a +young fellow the Doc was a great exhorter. Knew more Scripture when he +was sixteen than the presiding elder. Couldn't open his mouth without +losing a verse. Would lose a chapter when he yawned. +</p> + +<p> +Well, when Doc was about twenty-five, he fell in love with a mighty +sweet young girl, Leila Hardin, who every one said was too frivolous +for him. But the Doc only answered that it was his duty to marry her +to bring her under Christian influences, and they set off down the +river to New Orleans on their honeymoon. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hoover used to say that he hardly spoke to her on the trip. Sat +around in a daze, scowling and rolling his eyes, or charged up and +down the deck, swinging his arms and muttering to himself. Scared her +half to death, and she spent all her time crying when he wasn't +around. Thought he didn't love her any more, and it wasn't till the +first Sunday after she got home that she discovered what had ailed +him. Seemed that in the exaltation produced by his happiness at having +got her, he'd been composing a masterpiece, his famous sermon on the +Horrors of Hell, that scared half of Pike County into the fold, and +popularized dominoes with penny points as a substitute for +dollar-limit draw-poker among those whom it didn't quite fetch. +</p> + +<p> +Curious old cuss, the Doc. Found his wife played the piano pretty +medium rotten, so when he wanted to work himself into a rage about +something he'd sit down in the parlor and make her pound out "The +Maiden's Prayer." +</p> + +<p> +It's a mighty lucky thing that the Lord, and not the neighbors, makes +the matches, because Doc's friends would have married him to Deacon +Dody's daughter, who was so chuck full of good works that there was no +room inside her for a heart. She afterward eloped with a St. Louis +drummer, and before he divorced her she'd become the best lady poker +player in the State of Missouri. But with Leila and the Doc it was a +case of give-and-take from the start—that is, as is usual with a good +many married folks, she'd give and he'd take. There never was a better +minister's wife, and when you've said that you've said the last word +about good wives and begun talking about martyrs, because after a +minister's wife has pleased her husband she's got to please the rest +of the church. +</p> + +<p> +I simply mention Doc's honeymoon in passing as an example of the fact +that two people can start out in life without anything in common +apparently, except a desire to make each other happy, and, with that +as a platform to meet on, keep coming closer and closer together until +they find that they have everything in common. It isn't always the +case, of course, but then it's happened pretty often that before I +entered the room where an engaged couple were sitting I've had to +cough or whistle to give them a chance to break away; and that after +they were married I've had to keep right on coughing or whistling for +the same couple to give them time to stop quarreling. +</p> + +<p> +There are mighty few young people who go into marriage with any real +idea of what it means. They get their notion of it from among the +clouds where they live while they are engaged, and, naturally, about +all they find up there is wind and moonshine; or from novels, which +always end just before the real trouble begins, or if they keep on, +leave out the chapters that tell how the husband finds the rent and +the wife the hired girls. But if there's one thing in the world about +which it's possible to get all the facts, it's matrimony. Part of them +are right in the house where you were born, and the neighbors have the +rest. +</p> + +<p> +It's been my experience that you've got to have leisure to be unhappy. +Half the troubles in this world are imaginary, and it takes time to +think them up. But it's these oftener than the real troubles that +break a young husband's back or a young wife's heart. +</p> + +<p> +A few men and more women can be happy idle when they're single, but +once you marry them to each other they've got to find work or they'll +find trouble. Everybody's got to raise something in this world, and +unless people raise a job, or crops, or children, they'll raise Cain. +You can ride three miles on the trolley car to the Stock Yards every +morning and find happiness at the end of the trip, but you may chase +it all over the world in a steam yacht without catching up with it. A +woman can find fun from the basement to the nursery of her own house, +but give her a license to gad the streets and a bunch of matinée +tickets and shell find discontent. There's always an idle woman or an +idle man in every divorce case. When the man earns the bread in the +sweat of his brow, it's right that the woman should perspire a little +baking it. +</p> + +<p> +There are two kinds of discontent in this world—the discontent that +works and the discontent that wrings its hands. The first gets what it +wants, and the second loses what it has. There's no cure for the first +but success; and there's no cure at all for the second, especially if +a woman has it; for she doesn't know what she wants, and so you can't +give it to her. +</p> + +<p> +Happiness is like salvation—a state of grace that makes you enjoy the +good things you've got and keep reaching out, for better ones in the +hereafter. And home isn't what's around you, but what's inside you. +</p> + +<p> +I had a pretty good illustration of this whole thing some years ago +when a foolish old uncle died and left my cellar boss, Mike +Shaughnessy, a million dollars. I didn't bother about it particularly, +for he'd always been a pretty level-headed old Mick, and I supposed +that he'd put the money in pickle and keep right along at his job. But +one morning, when he came rooting and grunting into my office in a +sort of casual way, trying to keep a plug hat from falling off the +back of his head, I knew that he was going to fly the track. Started +in to tell me that his extensive property interests demanded all his +attention now, but I cut it short with: +</p> + +<p> +"Mike, you've been a blamed good cellar boss, but you're going to make +a blamed bad millionaire. Think it over." +</p> + +<p> +Well, sir, I'm hanged if that fellow, whom I'd raised from the time he +was old enough to poke a barrel along the runways with a pointed +stick, didn't blow a cloud of cigar smoke in my face to show that he +was just as big as I was, and start tight in to regularly cuss me out. +But he didn't get very far. I simply looked at Mm, and said sudden, +"Git, you Mick," and he wilted back out of the office just as easy as +if he hadn't had ten cents. +</p> + +<p> +I heard of him off and on for the next year, putting up a house on +Michigan Avenue, buying hand-painted pictures by the square foot and +paying for them by the square inch—for his wife had decided that they +must occupy their proper station in society—and generally building up +a mighty high rating as a good thing. +</p> + +<p> +As you know, I keep a pretty close eye on the packing house, but on +account of my rheumatism I don't often go through the cellars. But +along about this time we began to get so many complaints about our dry +salt meats that I decided to have a little peek at our stock for +myself, and check up the new cellar boss. I made for him and his gang +first, and I was mightily pleased, as I came upon him without his +seeing me, to notice how he was handling his men. No hollering, or +yelling, or cussing, but every word counting and making somebody hop. +I was right upon him before I discovered that it wasn't the new +foreman, but Mike, who was bossing the gang. He half ducked behind a +pile of Extra Short Clears when he saw me, but turned, when he found +that it was too late, and faced me bold as brass. +</p> + +<p> +"A nice state you've let things get in while I was away, sorr," he +began. +</p> + +<p> +It was Mike, the cellar boss, who knew his job, and no longer Mr. +Shaughnessy, the millionaire, who didn't know his, that was talking, +so I wasn't too inquisitive, and only nodded. +</p> + +<p> +"Small wonder," he went on, "that crime's incr'asing an' th' cotton +crop's decreasing in the black belt, when you're sendin' such mate to +the poor naygurs. Why don't you git a cellar man that's been raised +with the hogs, an' 'll treat 'em right when they're dead?" +</p> + +<p> +"I'm looking for one," says I. +</p> + +<p> +"I know a likely lad for you," says he. +</p> + +<p> +"Report to the superintendent," says I; and Mike's been with me ever +since. I found out when I looked into it that for a week back he'd +been paying the new cellar boss ten dollars a day to lay around +outside while he bossed his job. +</p> + +<p> +Mike sold his old masters to a saloon-keeper and moved back to +Packingtown, where he invested all his money in houses, from which he +got a heap of satisfaction, because, as his tenants were compatriots, +he had plenty of excitement collecting his rents. Like most people who +fall into fortunes suddenly, he had bought a lot of things, not +because he needed them or really wanted them, but because poorer +people couldn't have them. Yet in the end he had sense enough to see +that happiness can't be inherited, but that it must be earned. +</p> + +<p> +Being a millionaire is a trade like a doctor's—you must work up +through every grade of earning, saving, spending and giving, or you're +no more fit to be trusted with a fortune than a quack with human life. +For there's no trade in the world, except the doctor's, on which the +lives and the happiness of so many people depend as the millionaire's; +and I might add that there's no other in which there's so much +malpractice. +</p> + +<p> +Your affectionate father, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +JOHN GRAHAM. +</p> + + + +<hr> + +<a name="CHX"></a><p class="ctr"> +No. 10 +</p> + +<p class="addindent"> +From John Graham, at Mount Clematis, Michigan, to his son, Pierrepont, +at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The young man has done famously +during the first year of his married life, and the old man has decided +to give him a more important position. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +X +</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> +MOUNT CLEMATIS, January 1, 1900. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Dear Pierrepont</i>: Since I got here, my rheumatism has been so bad +mornings that the attendant who helps me dress has had to pull me over +to the edge of the bed by the seat of my pajamas. If they ever give +way, I reckon I'll have to stay in bed all day. As near as I can +figure out from what the doctor says, the worse you feel during the +first few days you're taking the baths, the better you really are. I +suppose that when a fellow dies on their hands they call it a cure. +</p> + +<p> +I'm by the worst of it for to-day, though, because I'm downstairs. +Just now the laugh is on an old boy with benevolent side-whiskers, +who's sliding down the balusters, and a fat old party, who looks like +a bishop, that's bumping his way down with his feet sticking out +straight in front of him. Shy away from these things that end in an +ism, my boy. From skepticism to rheumatism they've an ache or a pain +in every blamed joint. +</p> + +<p> +Still, I don't want to talk about my troubles, but about your own. +Barton leaves us on the first, and so we shall need a new assistant +general manager for the business. It's a ten-thousand-dollar job, and +a nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-dollar man can't fill it. +From the way in which you've handled your department during the past +year, I'm inclined to think that you can deliver that last dollar's +worth of value. Anyway, I'm going to try you, and you've got to make +good, because if you should fail it would be a reflection on my +judgment as a merchant and a blow to my pride as a father. I could +bear up under either, but the combination would make me feel like +firing you. +</p> + +<p> +As a matter of fact, I can't make you general manager; all I can do is +to give you the title of general manager. And a title is like a suit +of clothes—it must fit the man who tries to wear it. I can clothe you +in a little brief authority, as your old college friend, Shakespeare, +puts it, but I can't keep people from laughing at you when they see +you swelling around in your high-water pants. +</p> + +<p> +It's no use demanding respect in this world; you've got to command it. +There's old Jim Wharton, who, for acting as a fourth-class consul of a +fifth-class king, was decorated with the order of the garter or the +suspender or the eagle of the sixth class—the kind these kings give +to the cook when he gets just the right flavor of garlic in a fancy +sauce. Jim never did a blame thing in his life except to inherit a +million dollars from a better man, who happened to come over on the +Cunard Line instead of the Mayflower, but he'd swell around in our +best society, with that ribbon on his shirt-front, thinking that he +looked like Prince Rupert by Louis the Fourteenth and Lady Clara Vere +de Vere, instead of the fourth assistant to the floor manager at the +Plumbers' ball. But you take Tom Lipton, who was swelled up into Sir +Thomas because he discovered how to pack a genuine Yorkshire ham in +Chicago, and a handle looks as natural on him as on a lard pail. +</p> + +<p> +A man is a good deal like a horse—he knows the touch of a master, and +no matter how lightly the reins are held over him, he understands that +he must behave. But let a fellow who isn't quite sure of himself begin +sawing on a horse's mouth, and the first thing you know the critter +bucks and throws him. +</p> + +<p> +You've only one pair of eyes with which to watch 10,000 men, so unless +they're open all the time you'll be apt to overlook something here and +there; but you'll have 10,000 pairs of eyes watching you all the time, +and they won't overlook anything. You mustn't be known as an easy +boss, or as a hard boss, but as a just boss. Of course, some just men +lean backward toward severity, and some stoop down toward mercy. Both +kinds may make good bosses, but I've usually found that when you hold +the whip hand it's a great thing not to use the whip. +</p> + +<p> +It looks like a pretty large contract to know what 10,000 men are +doing, but, as a matter of fact, there's nothing impossible about it. +In the first place, you don't need to bother very much about the +things that are going all right, except to try to make them go a +little better; but you want to spend your time smelling out the things +that are going all wrong and laboring with them till you've persuaded +them to lead a better life. For this reason, one of the most important +duties of your job is to keep track of everything that's out of the +usual. If anything unusually good happens, there's an unusually good +man behind it, and he ought to be earmarked for promotion; and if +anything unusually bad happens, there's apt to be an unusually bad man +behind that, and he's a candidate for a job with another house. +</p> + +<p> +A good many of these things which it's important for you to know +happen a little before beginning and a little after quitting time; and +so the real reason why the name of the boss doesn't appear on the +time-sheet is not because he's a bigger man than any one else in the +place, but because there shouldn't be any one around to take his time +when he gets down and when he leaves. +</p> + +<p> +You can tell a whole lot about your men from the way in which they +come in and the way in which they go home; but because a fellow is in +the office early, it doesn't always mean that he's panting to begin +work; it may mean that he's been out all night. And when you see a +fellow poring over his books after the others have quit, it doesn't +always follow that he's so wrapped up in his work that he can't tear +himself away from it. It may mean that during business hours he had +his head full of horse-racing instead of figures, and that he's +staying to chase up the thirty cents which he's out in his balance. +You want to find out which. +</p> + +<p> +The extra-poor men and the extra-good men always stick their heads up +above the dead-level of good-enough men; the first to holler for help, +and the second to get an extra reach. And when your attention is +attracted to one of these men, follow him up and find out just what +sort of soil and fertilizer he needs to grow fastest. It isn't enough +to pick likely stock; you've got to plant it where the conditions are +right to develop its particular possibilities. A fellow who's got the +making of a five-thousand-dollar office man in him may not sell enough +lard to fry a half-portion of small potatoes if you put him on the +road. Praise judiciously given may act on one man like an application +of our bone-meal to a fruit tree, and bring out all the pippins that +are in the wood; while in the other it may simply result in his going +all to top. +</p> + +<p> +You mustn't depend too much on the judgment of department heads and +foremen when picking men for promotion. Take their selection if he is +the best man, but know for yourself that he is the best man. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes a foreman will play a favorite, and, as any fellow who's +been to the races knows, favorites ain't always winners. And +sometimes, though not often, he'll try to hold back a good man through +jealousy. When I see symptoms of a foreman's being jealous of a man +under him, that fellow doesn't need any further recommendation to me. +A man's never jealous of inferiority. +</p> + +<p> +It's a mighty valuable asset for a boss, when a vacancy occurs in a +department, to be able to go to its head when he recommends Bill Smith +for the position, and show that he knows all about Bill Smith from his +number-twelve socks up to his six-and-a-quarter hat, and to ask: +"What's the matter with Tom Jones for the job?" When you refuse to +take something just as good in this world, you'll usually find that +the next time you call the druggist has the original Snicker's +Sassafras Sneezer in stock. +</p> + +<p> +It's mighty seldom, though, that a really good man will complain to +you that he's being held down, or that his superior is jealous of him. +It's been my experience that it's only a mighty small head that so +small an idea as this can fill. When a fellow has it, he's a good deal +like one of those girls with the fatal gift of beauty in her +imagination, instead of her face—always believing that the boys don't +dance with her because the other girls tell them spiteful things about +her. +</p> + +<p> +Besides always having a man in mind for any vacancy that may occur, +you want to make sure that there are two men in the office who +understand the work of each position in it. Every business should be +bigger than any one man. If it isn't, there's a weak spot in it that +will kill it in the end. And every job needs an understudy. Sooner or +later the star is bound to fall sick, or get the sulks or the swelled +head, and then, if there's no one in the wings who knows her lines, +the gallery will rotten-egg the show and howl for its money back. +Besides, it has a mighty chastening and stimulating effect on the star +to know that if she balks there's a sweet young thing in reserve who's +able and eager to go the distance. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, I don't mean by this that you want to play one man against +another or try to minimize to a good man his importance to the house. +On the contrary, you want to dwell on the importance of all positions, +from that of office-boy up, and make every man feel that he is a vital +part of the machinery of the business, without letting him forget that +there's a spare part lying around handy, and that if he breaks or goes +wrong it can be fitted right in and the machine kept running. It's +good human nature to want to feel that something's going to bust when +you quit, but it's bad management if things are fixed so that anything +can. +</p> + +<p> +In hiring new men, you want to depend almost altogether on your own +eyes and your own judgment. Remember that when a man's asking for a +job he's not showing you himself, but the man whom he wants you to +hire. For that reason, I never take on an applicant after a first +interview. I ask him to call again. The second time he may not be made +up so well, and he may have forgotten some of his lines. In any event, +hell feel that he knows you a little better, and so act a little +easier and talk a little freer. +</p> + +<p> +Very often a man whom you didn't like on his first appearance will +please you better on his second, because a lot of people always appear +at their worst when they're trying to appear at their best. And again, +when you catch a fellow off guard who seemed all right the first time, +you may find that he deaconed himself for your benefit, and that all +the big strawberries were on top. Don't attach too much importance to +the things which an applicant has a chance to do with deliberation, or +pay too much attention to his nicely prepared and memorized speech +about himself. Watch the little things which he does unconsciously, +and put unexpected questions which demand quick answers. +</p> + +<p> +If he's been working for Dick Saunders, it's of small importance what +Dick says of him in his letter of recommendation. If you want Dick's +real opinion, get it in some other way than in an open note, of which +the subject's the bearer. As a matter of fact, Dick's opinion +shouldn't carry too much weight, except on a question of honesty, +because if Dick let him go, he naturally doesn't think a great deal of +him; and if the man resigned voluntarily, Dick is apt to feel a little +sore about it. But your applicant's opinion of Dick Saunders is of +very great importance to you. A good man never talks about a real +grievance against an old employer to a new one; a poor man always +pours out an imaginary grievance to any one who will listen. You +needn't cheer in this world when you don't like the show, but silence +is louder than a hiss. +</p> + +<p> +Hire city men and country men; men who wear grandpa's Sunday suit; +thread-bare men and men dressed in those special four-ninety-eight +bargains; but don't hire dirty men. Time and soap will cure dirty +boys, but a full-grown man who shrinks from the use of water +externally is as hard to cure as one who avoids its use internally. +It's a mighty curious thing that you can tell a man his morals are bad +and he needs to get religion, and hell still remain your friend; but +that if you tell him his linen's dirty and he needs to take a bath, +you've made a mortal enemy. +</p> + +<p> +Give the preference to the lean men and the middleweights. The world +is full of smart and rich fat men, but most of them got their +smartness and their riches before they got their fat. +</p> + +<p> +Always appoint an hour at which you'll see a man, and if he's late a +minute don't bother with him. A fellow who can be late when his own +interests are at stake is pretty sure to be when yours are. Have a +scribbling pad and some good letter paper on a desk, and ask the +applicant to write his name and address. A careful and economical man +will use the pad, but a careless and wasteful fellow will reach for +the best thing in sight, regardless of the use to which it's to be +put. +</p> + +<p> +Look in a man's eyes for honesty; around his mouth for weakness; at +his chin for strength; at his hands for temperament; at his nails for +cleanliness. His tongue will tell you his experience, and under the +questioning of a shrewd employer prove or disprove its statements as +it runs along. Always remember, in the case of an applicant from +another city, that when a man says he doesn't like the town in which +he's been working it's usually because he didn't do very well there. +</p> + +<p> +You want to be just as careful about hiring boys as men. A lot of +employers go on the theory that the only important thing about a boy +is his legs, and if they're both fitted on and limber they hire him. +As a matter of fact, a boy is like a stick of dynamite, small and +compact, but as full of possibilities of trouble as a car-load of +gunpowder. One bad boy in a Sunday-school picnic can turn it into a +rough-house outfit for looting orchards, and one little cuss in your +office can demoralize your kids faster than you can fire them. +</p> + +<p> +I remember one boy who organized a secret society, called the +Mysterious League. It held meetings in our big vault, which they +called the donjon keep, and, naturally, when one of them was going on, +boys were scarcer around the office than hen's teeth. The object of +the league, as I shook it out of the head leaguer by the ear, was to +catch the head bookkeeper, whom the boys didn't like, and whom they +called the black caitiff, alone in the vault some night while he was +putting away his books, slam the door, and turn the combination on +him. Tucked away in a corner of the vault, they had a message for him, +written in red ink, on a sheep's skull, telling him to tremble, that +he was in the hands of the Mysterious League, and that he would be led +at midnight to the torture chamber. I learned afterward that when the +bookkeeper had reached in his desk to get a pen, a few days before, he +had pulled out a cold, clammy, pickled pig's foot, on which was +printed: "Beware! first you will lose a leg!" +</p> + +<p> +I simply mention the Mysterious League in passing. Of course, boys +will be boys, but you mustn't let them be too cussed boyish during +business hours. A slow boy can waste a lot of the time of a +five-thousand-dollar man whose bell he's answering; and a careless boy +can mislay a letter or drop a paper that will ball up the work of the +most careful man in the office. +</p> + +<p> +It's really harder to tell what you're getting when you hire a boy +than when you hire a man. I found that out for keeps a few years ago, +when I took on the Angel Child. He was the son of rich parents, who +weren't quite rich enough to buy chips and sit in the game of the +no-limit millionaires. So they went in for what they called the simple +life. I want to say right here that I'm a great believer in the simple +life, but some people are so blamed simple about it that they're +idiotic. The world is full of rich people who talk about leading the +simple life when they mean the stingy life. They are the kind that are +always giving poorer people a chance to chip in an even share with +them toward defraying the expenses of the charities and the +entertainments which they get up. They call it "affording those in +humbler walks an opportunity to keep up their self-respect," but what +they really mean is that it helps them to keep down their own +expenses. +</p> + +<p> +The Angel Child's mother was one of these women who talk to people +that aren't quite so rich as she in the tone of one who's commending a +worthy charity; but who hangs on the words of a richer woman like a +dog that hopes a piece of meat is going to be thrown at it, and yet +isn't quite sure that it won't get a kick instead. As a side-line, she +made a specialty of trying to uplift the masses, and her husband +furnished the raw material for the uplifting, as he paid his men less +and worked 'em harder than any one else in Chicago. +</p> + +<p> +Well, one day this woman came into my office, bringing her only son +with her. He was a solemn little cuss, but I didn't get much chance to +size him up, because his ma started right in to explain how he'd been +raised—no whipping, no—but I cut it short there, and asked her to +get down to brass tacks, as I was very busy trying to see that +70,000,000 people were supplied with their daily pork. So she +explained that she wanted me to give the Angel Child a job in my +office during his summer vacation, so that he could see how the other +half lived, and at the same time begin to learn self-reliance. +</p> + +<p> +I was just about to refuse, when it occurred to me that if he had +never really had a first-class whipping it was a pity not to put him +in the way of getting one. So I took him by the hand and led him to +headquarters for whippings, the bench in the shipping department, +where a pretty scrappy lot of boys were employed to run errands, and +told the boss to take him on. +</p> + +<p> +I wasn't out of hearing before one kid said, "I choose him," and +another, whom they called the Breakfast-Food Baby, because he was so +strong, answered, "Naw; I seen him first." +</p> + +<p> +I dismissed the matter from my mind then, but a few days later, when I +was walking through the shipping department, it occurred to me that I +might as well view the remains of the Angel Child, if they hadn't been +removed to his late residence. I found him sitting in the middle of +the bench, looking a little sad and lonesome, but all there. The other +boys seemed to be giving him plenty of room, and the Breakfast-Food +Baby, with both eyes blacked, had edged along to the end of the bench. +I beckoned to the Angel Child to follow me to my private office. +</p> + +<p> +"What does this mean, young man?" I asked, when he got there. "Have you been fighting?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, sir," he answered, sort of brightening up. +</p> + +<p> +"Which one?" +</p> + +<p> +"Michael and Patrick the first day, sir." +</p> + +<p> +"Did you lick 'em?" +</p> + +<p> +"I had rather the better of it," he answered, as precise as a slice of +cold-boiled Boston. +</p> + +<p> +"And the second?" +</p> + +<p> +"Why, the rest of 'em, sir." +</p> + +<p> +"Including the Breakfast-Food—er, James?" +</p> + +<p> +He nodded. "James is very strong, sir, but he lacks science. He drew +back as if he had a year to hit me, and just as he got good and ready +to strike, I pasted him one in the snoot, and followed that up with a +left jab in the eye." +</p> + +<p> +I hadn't counted on boxing lessons being on the bill of fare of the +simple life, and it raised my hopes still further to see from that +last sentence how we had grafted a little Union Stock Yards on his +Back Bay Boston. In fact, my heart quite warmed to the lad; but I +looked at him pretty severely, and only said: +</p> + +<p> +"Mark you, young man, we don't allow any fighting around here; and if +you can't get along without quarrelling with the boys in the shipping +department, I'll have to bring you into these offices, where I can +have an eye on your conduct." +</p> + +<p> +There were two or three boys in the main office who were spoiling for +a thrashing, and I reckoned that the Angel Child would attend to their +cases; and he did. He was cock of the walk in a week, and at the same +time one of the bulliest, daisiest, most efficient, most respectful +boys that ever worked for me. He put a little polish on the other +kids, and they took a little of the extra shine off him. He's in +Harvard now, but when he gets out there's a job waiting for him, if +he'll take it. +</p> + +<p> +That was a clear case of catching an angel on the fly, or of +entertaining one unawares, as the boy would have put it, and it taught +me not to consider my prejudices or his parents in hiring a boy, but +to focus my attention on the boy himself, when he was the one who +would have to run the errands. The simple life was a pose and pretense +with the Angel Child's parents, and so they were only a new brand of +snob; but the kid had been caught young and had taken it all in +earnest; and so he was a new breed of boy, and a better one than I'd +ever hired before. +</p> + +<p> +Your affectionate father, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +JOHN GRAHAM. +</p> + + + +<hr> + +<a name="CHXI"></a><p class="ctr"> +No. 11 +</p> + +<p class="addindent"> +From John Graham, at Mount Clematis, Michigan, to his son, Pierrepont, +at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The young man has sent the old man +a dose of his own medicine, advice, and he is proving himself a good +doctor by taking it. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +XI +</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> +MOUNT CLEMATIS, January 25, 1900. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Dear Pierrepont</i>: They've boiled everything out of me except the +original sin, and even that's a little bleached, and they've taken +away my roll of yellow-backs, so I reckon they're about through with +me here, for the present. But instead of returning to the office, I +think I'll take your advice and run down to Florida for a few weeks +and have a "try at the tarpon," as you put it. I don't really need a +tarpon, or want a tarpon, and I don't know what I could do with a +tarpon if I hooked one, except to yell at him to go away; but I need a +burned neck and a peeled nose, a little more zest for my food, and a +little more zip about my work, if the interests of the American hog +are going to be safe in my hands this spring. I don't seem to have so +much luck as some fellows in hooking these fifty-pound fish lies, but +I always manage to land a pretty heavy appetite and some big nights' +sleep when I strike salt water. Then I can go back to the office and +produce results like a hen in April with eggs at eleven cents a dozen. +</p> + +<div class="img"><img src="Images/07.jpg" alt="I don't really need a tarpon … but I need a burned +neck and a peeled nose" width="397" height="234"></div> +<p class="caption"> +I don't really need a tarpon … but I need a burned +neck and a peeled nose +</p> + +<p> +Health is like any inheritance—you can spend the interest in work and +play, but you mustn't break into the principal. Once you do, and it's +only a matter of time before you've got to place the remnants in the +hands of a doctor as receiver; and receivers are mighty partial to +fees and mighty slow to let go. But if you don't work with him to get +the business back on a sound basis there's no such thing as any +further voluntary proceedings, and the remnants become remains. +</p> + +<p> +It's a mighty simple thing, though, to keep in good condition, because +about everything that makes for poor health has to get into you right +under your nose. Yet a fellow'll load up with pie and buckwheats for +breakfast and go around wondering about his stomach-ache, as if it +were a put-up job that had been played on him when he wasn't looking; +or he'll go through his dinner pickling each course in a different +brand of alcohol, and sob out on the butler's shoulder that the booze +isn't as pure as it used to be when he was a boy; or he'll come home +at midnight singing "The Old Oaken Bucket," and act generally as if +all the water in the world were in the well on the old homestead, and +the mortgage on that had been foreclosed; or from 8 P.M. to 3 G.X. +he'll sit in a small game with a large cigar, breathing a blend of +light-blue cigarette smoke and dark-blue cuss-words, and next day, +when his heart beats four and skips two, and he has that queer, +hopping sensation in the knees, he'll complain bitterly to the other +clerks that this confining office work is killing him. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, with all the care in the world, a fellow's likely to catch +things, but there's no sense in sending out invitations to a lot of +miscellaneous microbes and pretending when they call that it's a +surprise party. Bad health hates a man who is friendly with its +enemies—hard work, plain food, and pure air. More men die from worry +than from overwork; more stuff themselves to death than die of +starvation; more break their necks falling down the cellar stairs than +climbing mountains. If the human animal reposed less confidence in his +stomach and more in his legs, the streets would be full of healthy men +walking down to business. Remember that a man always rides to his +grave; he never walks there. +</p> + +<p> +When I was a boy, the only doubt about the food was whether there +would be enough of it; and there wasn't any doubt at all about the +religion. If the pork barrel was full, father read a couple of extra +Psalms at morning prayers, to express our thankfulness; and if it was +empty, he dipped into Job for half an hour at evening prayers, to +prove that we were better off than some folks. But you don't know what +to eat these days, with one set of people saying that only beasts eat +meat, and another that only cattle eat grain and green stuff; or what +to believe, with one crowd claiming that there's nothing the matter +with us, as the only matter that we've got is in our minds; and +another crowd telling us not to mind what the others say, because +they've got something the matter with their minds. I reckon that what +this generation really needs is a little less pie and a little more +piety. +</p> + +<p> +I dwell on this matter of health, because when the stomach and liver +ain't doing good work, the brain can't. A good many men will say that +it's none of your business what they do in their own time, but you +want to make it your business, so long as it affects what they do in +your time. For this reason, you should never hire men who drink after +office hours; for it's their time that gets the effects, and your time +that gets the after-effects. Even if a boss grants that there's fun in +drinking, it shouldn't take him long to discover that he's getting the +short end of it, when all the clerks can share with him in the morning +is the head and the hangover. +</p> + +<p> +I might add that I don't like the effects of drinking any more than +the after-effects; and for this reason you should never hire men who +drink during business hours. When a fellow adds up on whisky, he's apt +to see too many figures; and when he subtracts on beer, he's apt to +see too few. +</p> + +<p> +It may have been the case once that when you opened up a bottle for a +customer he opened up his heart, but booze is a mighty poor salesman +nowadays. It takes more than a corkscrew to draw out a merchant's +order. Most of the men who mixed their business and their drinks have +failed, and the new owners take their business straight. Of course, +some one has to pay for the drinks that a drummer sets up. The drummer +can't afford it on his salary; the house isn't really in the +hospitality business; so, in the end, the buyer always stands treat. +He may not see it in his bill for goods, but it's there, and the smart +ones have caught on to it. +</p> + +<p> +After office hours, the number of drinks a fellow takes may make a +difference in the result to his employer, but during business hours +the effect of one is usually as bad as half a dozen. A buyer who +drinks hates a whisky breath when he hasn't got one himself, and a +fellow who doesn't drink never bothers to discover whether he's being +talked to by a simple or a compound breath. He knows that some men who +drink are unreliable, and that unreliable men are apt to represent +unreliable houses and to sell unreliable goods, and he hasn't the time +or the inclination to stop and find out that this particular salesman +has simply had a mild snort as an appetizer and a gentle soother as a +digester. So he doesn't get an order, and the house gets a black eye. +This is a very, very busy world, and about the only person who is +really interested in knowing just how many a fellow has had is his +wife, and she won't always believe him. +</p> + +<p> +Naturally, when you expect so much from your men, they have a right +to expect a good deal from you. If you want them to feel that your +interests are theirs, you must let them see that their interests are +yours. There are a lot of fellows in the world who are working just for +glory, but they are mostly poets, and you needn't figure on finding +many of them out at the Stock Yards. Praise goes a long way with a good +man, and some employers stop there; but cash goes the whole distance, +and if you want to keep your growing men with you, you mustn't expect +them to do all the growing. Small salaries make slow workers and +careless clerks; because it isn't hard to get an underpaid job. But a +well-paid man sticketh closer than a little brother-in-law-to-be to the +fellow who brings the candy. For this reason, when I close the books at +the end of the year, I always give every one, from the errand boys up, +a bonus based on the size of his salary and my profits. There's no way +I've ever tried that makes my men take an interest in the size of my +profits like giving them a share. And there's no advertisement for a +house like having its men going around blowing and bragging because +they're working for it. +</p> + +<p> +Again, if you insist that your men shan't violate the early-closing +ordinance, you must observe one yourself. A man who works only half a +day Saturday can usually do a day and half's work Monday. I'd rather +have my men hump themselves for nine hours than dawdle for ten. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, the world is full of horses who won't work except with the +whip, but that's no reason for using it on those who will. When I get +a critter that hogs my good oats and then won't show them in his gait, +I get rid of him. He may be all right for a fellow who's doing a +peddling business, but I need a little more speed and spirit in mine. +</p> + +<p> +A lot of people think that adversity and bad treatment is the test of +a man, and it is—when you want to develop his strength; but +prosperity and good treatment is a better one when you want to develop +his weakness. By keeping those who show their appreciation of it and +firing those who don't, you get an office full of crackerjacks. +</p> + +<p> +While your men must feel all the time that they've got a boss who can +see good work around a corner, they mustn't be allowed to forget that +there's no private burying-ground on the premises for mistakes. When a +Western town loses one of its prominent citizens through some careless +young fellow's letting his gun go off sudden, if the sheriff buys a +little rope and sends out invitations to an inquest, it's apt to make +the boys more reserved about exchanging repartee; and if you pull up +your men sharp when you find them shooting off their mouths to +customers and getting gay in their correspondence, it's sure to cut +down the mortality among our old friends in the trade. A clerk's never +fresh in letters that the boss is going to see. +</p> + +<p> +The men who stay in the office and plan are the brains of your +business; those who go out and sell are its arms; and those who fill +and deliver the orders are its legs. There's no use in the brains +scheming and the arms gathering in, if the legs are going to deliver +the goods with a kick. +</p> + +<p> +That's another reason why it's very important for you to be in the +office early. You can't personally see every order filled, and tell +whether it was shipped promptly and the right goods sent, but when the +telegrams and letters are opened, you can have all the kicks sorted +out, and run through them before they're distributed for the day. +That's where you'll meet the clerk who billed a tierce of hams to the +man who ordered a box; the shipper who mislaid Bill Smith's order for +lard, and made Bill lose his Saturday's trade through the delay; the +department head who felt a little peevish one morning and so wrote +Hardin & Co., who buy in car-lots, that if they didn't like the smoke +of the last car of Bacon Short Clears they could lump it, or words to +that effect; and that's where you'll meet the salesman who played a +sure thing on the New Orleans track and needs twenty to get to the +next town, where his check is waiting. Then, a little later, when you +make the rounds of the different departments to find out how it +happened, the heads will tell you all the good news that was in the +morning's mail. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, you can keep track of your men in a sneaking way that will +make them despise you, and talk to them in a nagging spirit that will +make them bristle when they see you. But it's your right to know and +your business to find out, and if you collect your information in an +open, frank manner, going at it in the spirit of hoping to find +everything all right, instead of wanting to find something all wrong; +and if you talk to the responsible man with an air of "here's a place +where we can get together and correct a weakness in our business"—not +my business—instead of with an "Ah! ha! I've-found-you-out" +expression, your men will throw handsprings for your good opinion. +Never nag a man tinder any circumstances; fire him. +</p> + +<p> +A good boss, in these days when profits are pared down to the quick, +can't afford to have any holes, no matter how small, in his +management; but there must be give enough in his seams so that every +time he stoops down to pick up a penny he won't split his pants. He +must know how to be big, as well as how to be small. +</p> + +<p> +Some years ago, I knew a firm who did business under the name of +Foreman & Sowers. They were a regular business vaudeville team—one +big and broad-gauged in all his ideas; the other unable to think in +anything but boys' and misses' sizes. Foreman believed that men got +rich in dollars; Sowers in cents. Of course, you can do it in either +way, but the first needs brains and the second only hands. It's been +my experience that the best way is to go after both the dollars and +the cents. +</p> + +<p> +Well, sir, these fellows launched a specialty, a mighty good thing, +the Peep o' Daisy Breakfast Food, and started in to advertise. Sowers +wanted to use inch space and sell single cases; Foreman kicked because +full pages weren't bigger and wanted to sell in car-lots, leaving the +case trade to the jobbers. Sowers only half-believed in himself, and +only a quarter in the food, and only an eighth in advertising. So he +used to go home nights and lie awake with a living-picture exhibit of +himself being kicked out of his store by the sheriff; and out of his +house by the landlord; and, finally, off the corner where he was +standing with his hat out for pennies, by the policeman. He hadn't a +big enough imagination even to introduce into this last picture a +sport dropping a dollar bill into his hat. But Foreman had a pretty +good opinion of himself, and a mighty big opinion of the food, and he +believed that a clever, well-knit ad. was strong enough to draw teeth. +So he would go home and build steam-yachts and country places in his +sleep. +</p> + +<p> +Naturally, the next morning, Sowers would come down haggard and +gloomy, and grow gloomier as he went deeper into the mail and saw how +small the orders were. But Foreman would start out as brisk and busy +as a humming-bird, tap the advertising agent for a new line of credit +on his way down to the office, and extract honey and hope from every +letter. +</p> + +<p> +Sowers begged him, day by day, to stop the useless fight and save the +remains of their business. But Foreman simply laughed. Said there +wouldn't be any remains when he was ready to quit. Allowed that he +believed in cremation, anyway, and that the only way to fix a brand on +the mind of the people was to burn it in with money. +</p> + +<p> +Sowers worried along a few days more, and then one night, after he had +been buried in the potter's field, he planned a final stroke to stop +Foreman, who, he believed, didn't know just how deep in they really +were. Foreman was in a particular jolly mood the next morning, for he +had spent the night bidding against Pierrepont Morgan at an auction +sale of old masters; but he listened patiently while Sowers called off +the figures in a sort of dirge-like singsong, and until he had wailed +out his final note of despair, a bass-drum crash, which he thought +would bring Foreman to a realizing sense of their loss, so to speak. +</p> + +<p> +"That," Sowers wound up, "makes a grand total of $800,000 that we have +already lost." +</p> + +<p> +Foreman's head drooped, and for a moment he was deep in thought, while +Sowers stood over him, sad, but triumphant, in the feeling that he had +at last brought this madman to his senses, now that his dollars were +gone. +</p> + +<p> +"Eight hundred thou!" the senior partner repeated mechanically. Then, +looking up with a bright smile, he exclaimed: "Why, old man, that +leaves us two hundred thousand still to spend before we hit the +million mark!" +</p> + +<p> +They say that Sowers could only gibber back at him; and Foreman kept +right on and managed some way to float himself on to the million mark. +There the tide turned, and after all these years it's still running +his way; and Sowers, against his better judgment, is a millionaire. +</p> + +<p> +I simply mention Foreman in passing. It would be all foolishness to +follow his course in a good many situations, but there's a time to +hold on and a time to let go, and the limit, and a little beyond, is +none too far to play a really good thing. But in business it's quite +as important to know how to be a good quitter as a good fighter. Even +when you feel that you've got a good thing, you want to make sure that +it's good enough, and that you're good enough, before you ask to have +the limit taken off. A lot of men who play a nice game of authors get +their feelings hurt at whist, and get it in the neck at poker. +</p> + +<p> +You want to have the same principle in mind when you're handling the +trade. Sometimes you'll have to lay down even when you feel that your +case is strong. Often you'll have to yield a point or allow a claim +when you know you're dead right and the other fellow all wrong. But +there's no sense in getting a licking on top of a grievance. +</p> + +<p> +Another thing that helps you keep track of your men is the habit of +asking questions. Your thirst for information must fairly make your +tongue loll out. When you ask the head of the canning department what +we're netting for two-pound Corned Beef on the day's market for +canners, and he has to say, "Wait a minute and I'll figure it out," or +turn to one of his boys and ask, "Bill, what are twos netting us?" he +isn't sitting close enough to his job, and, perhaps, if Bill were in +his chair, he'd be holding it in his lap; or when you ask the chief +engineer how much coal we burned this month, as compared with last, +and why in thunder we burned it, if he has to hem and haw and say he +hasn't had time to figure it out yet, but he thinks they were running +both benches in the packing house most of the time, and he guesses +this and reckons that, he needs to get up a little more steam himself. +In short, whenever you find a fellow that ought to know every minute +where he's at, but who doesn't know what's what, he's pretty likely to +be <i>It</i>. When you're dealing with an animal like the American hog, +that carries all its profit in the tip of its tail, you want to make +sure that your men carry all the latest news about it on the tip of +the tongue. +</p> + +<p> +It's not a bad plan, once in a while, to check up the facts and +figures that are given you. I remember one lightning calculator I had +working for me, who would catch my questions hot from the bat, and +fire back the answers before I could get into position to catch. Was a +mighty particular cuss. Always worked everything out to the sixth +decimal place. I had just about concluded he ought to have a wider +field for his talents, when I asked him one day how the hams of the +last week's run had been averaging in weight. Answered like a streak; +but it struck me that for hogs which had been running so light they +were giving up pretty generously. So I checked up his figures and +found 'em all wrong. Tried him with a different question every day for +a week. Always answered quick, and always answered wrong. Found that +he was a base-ball rooter and had been handing out the batting +averages of the Chicagos for his answers. Seems that when I used to +see him busy figuring with his pencil he was working out where Anson +stood on the list. He's not in Who's Who in the Stock Yards any more, +you bet. +</p> + +<p> +Your affectionate father, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +JOHN GRAHAM. +</p> + + + +<hr> + +<a name="CHXII"></a><p class="ctr"> +No. 12 +</p> + +<p class="addindent"> +From John Graham, at Magnolia Villa, on the Florida Coast, to his son, +Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The old man has started +back to Nature, but he hasn't gone quite far enough to lose sight of +his business altogether. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +XII +</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> +MAGNOLIA VILLA, February 5, 1900. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Dear Pierrepont</i>: Last week I started back to Nature, as you advised, +but at the Ocean High Roller House I found that I had to wear +knee-breeches, which was getting back too far, or creases in my +trousers, which wasn't far enough. So we've taken this little place, +where there's nothing between me and Nature but a blue shirt and an +old pair of pants, and I reckon that's near enough. +</p> + +<p> +I'm getting a complexion and your ma's losing hers. Hadn't anything +with her but some bonnets, so just before we left the hotel she went +into a little branch store, which a New York milliner runs there, and +tried to buy a shade hat. +</p> + +<p> +"How would this pretty little shepherdess effect do?" asked the girl +who was showing the goods, while she sized me up to see if the weight +of my pocketbook made my coat sag. +</p> + +<p> +"How much is it?" asked your ma. +</p> + +<p> +"Fifty dollars," said the girl, as bright and sassy as you please. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm not such a simple little shepherdess as that," answered your ma, +just a little brighter and a little sassier, and she's going around +bareheaded. She's doing the cooking and making the beds, because the +white girls from the North aren't willing to do "both of them works," +and the native niggers don't seem to care a great deal about doing any +work. And I'm splitting the wood for the kitchen stove, and an +occasional fish that has committed suicide. This morning, when I was +casting through the surf, a good-sized drum chased me up on shore, and +he's now the star performer in a chowder that your ma has billed for +dinner. +</p> + +<p> +They call this place a villa, though it's really a villainy; and what +I pay for it rent, though it's actually a robbery. But they can have +the last bill in the roll if they'll leave me your ma, and my +appetite, and that tired feeling at night. It's the bulliest time +we've had since the spring we moved into our first little cottage back +in Missouri, and raised climbing-roses and our pet pig, Toby. It's +good to have money and the things that money will buy, but it's good, +too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the +things that money won't buy. When a fellow's got what he set out for +in this world, he should go off into the woods for a few weeks now and +then to make sure that he's still a man, and not a plug-hat and a +frock-coat and a wad of bills. +</p> + +<p> +You can't do the biggest things in this world unless you can handle +men; and you can't handle men if you're not in sympathy with them; and +sympathy begins in humility. I don't mean the humility that crawls for +a nickel in the street and cringes for a thousand in the office; but +the humility that a man finds when he goes gunning in the woods for +the truth about himself. It's the sort of humility that makes a fellow +proud of a chance to work in the world, and want to be a square +merchant, or a good doctor, or an honest lawyer, before he's a rich +one. It makes him understand that while life is full of opportunities +for him, it's full of responsibilities toward the other fellow, too. +</p> + +<p> +That doesn't mean that you ought to coddle idleness, or to be slack +with viciousness, or even to carry on the pay-roll well-meaning +incompetence. For a fellow who mixes business and charity soon finds +that he can't make any money to give to charity; and in the end, +instead of having helped others, he's only added himself to the burden +of others. The kind of sympathy I mean holds up men to the bull-ring +without forgetting in its own success the hardships and struggles and +temptations of the fellow who hasn't got there yet, but is honestly +trying to. There's more practical philanthropy in keeping close to +these men and speaking the word that they need, or giving them the +shove that they deserve, than in building an eighteen-hole golf course +around the Stock Yards for them. Your force can always find plenty of +reasons for striking, without your furnishing an extra one in the poor +quality of the golf-balls that you give them. So I make it a rule that +everything I hand out to my men shall come in the course of business, +and be given on a business basis. When profits are large, they get a +large bonus and a short explanation of the business reasons in the +office and the country that have helped them to earn it; when profits +are small, the bonus shrinks and the explanation expands. I sell the +men their meats and give them their meals in the house restaurant at +cost, but nothing changes hands between us except in exchange for work +or cash. +</p> + +<p> +If you want a practical illustration of how giving something for +nothing works, pick out some one who has no real claim on you—an old +college friend who's too strong to work, or a sixteenth cousin who's +missed connections with the express to Fortune—and say: "You're a +pretty good fellow, and I want to help you; after this I'm going to +send you a hundred dollars the first of every month, until you've made +a new start." He'll fairly sicken you with his thanks for that first +hundred; he'll call you his generous benefactor over three or four +pages for the second; he'll send you a nice little half-page note of +thanks for the third; he'll write, "Yours of the first with inclosure +to hand—thanks," for the fourth; he'll forget to acknowledge the +fifth; and when the sixth doesn't come promptly, he'll wire collect: +"Why this delay in sending my check—mail at once." And all the time +he won't have stirred a step in the direction of work, because he'll +have reasoned, either consciously or unconsciously: "I can't get a job +that will pay me more than a hundred a month to start with; but I'm +already drawing a hundred without working; so what's the use?" But +when a fellow can't get a free pass, and he has any sort of stuff in +him, except what hoboes are made of, he'll usually hustle for his car +fare, rather than ride through life on the bumpers of a freight. +</p> + +<p> +The only favor that a good man needs is an opportunity to do the best +work that's in him; and that's the only present you can make him once +a week that will be a help instead of a hindrance to him. It's been my +experience that every man has in him the possibility of doing well +some one thing, no matter how humble, and that there's some one, in +some place, who wants that special thing done. The difference between +a fellow who succeeds and one who fails is that the first gets out and +chases after the man who needs him, and the second sits around waiting +to be hunted up. +</p> + +<p> +When I was a boy, we were brought up to believe that we were born +black with original sin, and that we bleached out a little under old +Doc Hoover's preaching. And in the church down Main Street they taught +that a lot of us were predestined to be damned, and a few of us to be +saved; and naturally we all had our favorite selections for the first +bunch. I used to accept the doctrine of predestination for a couple of +weeks every year, just before the Main Street church held its +Sunday-school picnic, and there are a few old rascals in the Stock +Yards that make me lean toward it sometimes now; but, in the main, I +believe that most people start out with a plenty of original goodness. +</p> + +<p> +The more I deal in it, the surer I am that human nature is all off +the same critter, but that there's a heap of choice in the cuts. Even +then a bad cook will spoil a four-pound porterhouse, where a good one +will take a chuck steak, make a few passes over it with seasoning and +fixings, and serve something that will line your insides with +happiness. Circumstances don't make men, but they shape them, and you +want to see that those under you are furnished with the right set of +circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +Every fellow is really two men—what he is and what he might be; and +you're never absolutely sure which you're going to bury till he's +dead. But a man in your position can do a whole lot toward furnishing +the officiating clergyman with beautiful examples, instead of horrible +warnings. The great secret of good management is to be more alert to +prevent a man's going wrong than eager to punish him for it. That's +why I centre authority and distribute checks upon it. That's why I've +never had any Honest Old Toms, or Good Old Dicks, or Faithful Old +Harrys handling my good money week-days and presiding over the +Sabbath-school Sundays for twenty years, and leaving the old man short +a hundred thousand, and the little ones short a superintendent, during +the twenty-first year. +</p> + +<p> +It's right to punish these fellows, but a suit for damages ought to +lie against their employers. Criminal carelessness is a bad thing, but +the carelessness that makes criminals is worse. The chances are that, +to start with, Tom and Dick were honest and good at the office and +sincere at the Sunday-school, and that, given the right circumstances, +they would have stayed so. It was their employers' business to see +that they were surrounded by the right circumstances at the office and +to find out whether they surrounded themselves with them at home. +</p> + +<p> +A man who's fundamentally honest is relieved instead of aggrieved by +having proper checks on his handling of funds. And the bigger the +man's position and the amount that he handles, the more important this +is. A minor employee can take only minor sums, and the principal harm +done is to himself; but when a big fellow gets into you, it's for +something big, and more is hurt than his morals and your feelings. +</p> + +<p> +I dwell a little on these matters, because I want to fix it firmly in +your mind that the man who pays the wages must put more in the weekly +envelope than money, if he wants to get his full money's worth. I've +said a good deal about the importance of little things to a boss; +don't forget their importance to your men. A thousand-dollar clerk +doesn't think with a ten-thousand-dollar head; a fellow whose view is +shut in by a set of ledgers can't see very far, and so stampedes +easier than one whose range is the whole shop; a brain that can't +originate big things can't forget trifles so quick as one in which the +new ideas keep crowding out the old annoyances. Ten thousand a year +will sweeten a multitude of things that don't taste pleasant, but +there's not so much sugar in a thousand to help them down. The sting +of some little word or action that wouldn't get under your skin at +all, is apt to swell up one of these fellows' bump of self-esteem as +big as an egg-plant, and make it sore all over. +</p> + +<p> +It's always been my policy to give a little extra courtesy and +consideration to the men who hold the places that don't draw the extra +good salaries. It's just as important to the house that they should +feel happy and satisfied as the big fellows. And no man who's doing +his work well is too small for a friendly word and a pat on the back, +and no fellow who's doing his work poorly is too big for a jolt that +will knock the nonsense out of him. +</p> + +<p> +You can't afford to give your men a real grievance, no matter how +small it is; for a man who's got nothing to occupy thin but his work +can accomplish twice as much as one who's busy with his work and a +grievance. The average man will leave terrapin and champagne in a +minute to chew over the luxury of feeling abused. Even when a man +isn't satisfied with the supply of real grievances which life affords, +and goes off hunting up imaginary ones, like a blame old gormandizing +French hog that leaves a full trough to root through the woods for +truffles, you still want to be polite; for when you fire a man there's +no good reason for doing it with a yell. +</p> + +<p> +Noise isn't authority, and there's no sense in ripping and roaring and +cussing around the office when things don't please you. For when a +fellow's given to that, his men secretly won't care a cuss whether +he's pleased or not. They'll jump when he speaks, because they value +their heads, not his good opinion. Indiscriminate blame is as bad as +undiscriminating praise—it only makes a man tired. +</p> + +<p> +I learned this, like most of the sense I've got—hard; and it was only +a few years ago that I took my last lesson in it. I came down one +morning with my breakfast digesting pretty easy, and found the orders +fairly heavy and the kicks rather light, so I told the young man who +was reading the mail to me, and who, of course, hadn't had anything +special to do with the run of orders, to buy himself a suit of clothes +and send the bill to the old man. +</p> + +<p> +Well, when the afternoon mail came in, I dipped into that, too, but +I'd eaten a pretty tony luncheon, and it got to finding fault with its +surroundings, and the letters were as full of kicks as a drove of +Missouri mules. So I began taking it out on the fellow who happened to +be handiest, the same clerk to whom I had given the suit of clothes in +the morning. Of course, he hadn't had anything to do with the run of +kicks either, but he never put up a hand to defend himself till I was +all through, and then he only asked: +</p> + +<p> +"Say, Mr. Graham, don't you want that suit of clothes back?" +</p> + +<div class="img"><img src="Images/08.jpg" alt=""Say, Mr. Graham, don't you want that suit of clothes +back?"" width="364" height="236"></div> +<p class="caption"> +"Say, Mr. Graham, don't you want that suit of clothes +back?" +</p> + +<p> +Of course, I could have fired him on the spot for impudence, but I +made it a suit and an overcoat instead. I don't expect to get my +experience on free passes. And I had my money's worth, too, because it +taught me that it's a good rule to make sure the other fellow's wrong +before you go ahead. When you jump on the man who didn't do it, you +make sore spots all over him; and it takes the spring out of your leap +for the fellow who did it. +</p> + +<p> +One of the first things a boss must lose is his temper—and it must +stay lost. There's about as much sense in getting yourself worked up +into a rage when a clerk makes a mistake as there is in going into the +barn and touching off a keg of gunpowder under the terrier because he +got mixed up in the dark and blundered into a chicken-coop instead of +a rat-hole. Fido may be an all-right ratter, in spite of the fact that +his foot slips occasionally, and a cut now and then with a switch +enough to keep him in order; but if his taste for chicken develops +faster than his nose for rats, it's easier to give him to one of the +neighbors than to blow him off the premises. +</p> + +<p> +Where a few words, quick, sharp, and decisive, aren't enough for a +man, a cussing out is too much. It proves that he's unfit for his +work, and it unfits you for yours. The world is full of fellows who +could take the energy which they put into useless cussing of their +men, and double their business with it. +</p> + +<p> +Your affectionate father, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +JOHN GRAHAM. +</p> + + + +<hr> + +<a name="CHXIII"></a><p class="ctr"> +No. 13 +</p> + +<p class="addindent"> +From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, +Pierrepont, care of Graham & Company, Denver. The young man has been +offered a large interest in a big thing at a small price, and he has +written asking the old man to lend him the price. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +XIII +</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> +CHICAGO, June 4, 1900. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Dear Pierrepont</i>: Judging from what you say about the Highfaluting +Lulu, it must be a wonder, and the owner's reason for selling—that +his lungs are getting too strong to stand the climate—sounds +perfectly good. You can have the money at 5 per cent, as soon as +you've finally made up your mind that you want it, but before you +plant it in the mine for keeps, I think you should tie a wet towel +around your head, while you consider for a few minutes the bare +possibility of having to pay me back out of your salary, instead of +the profits from the mine. You can't throw a stone anywhere in this +world without hitting a man, with a spade over his shoulder, who's +just said the last sad good-byes to his bank account and is starting +out for the cemetery where defunct flyers are buried. +</p> + +<p> +While you've only asked me for money, and not for advice, I may say +that, should you put a question on some general topic like, "What are +the wild waves saying, father?" I should answer, "Keep out of watered +stocks, my son, and wade into your own business a little deeper." +Though, when you come to think of it, these continuous-performance +companies, that let you in for ten, twenty, and thirty cents a share, +ought to be a mighty good thing for investors after they've developed +their oil and gold properties, because a lot of them can afford to pay +10 per cent. before they've developed anything but suckers. +</p> + +<p> +So long as gold-mining with a pen and a little fancy paper continues to +be such a profitable industry, a lot of fellows who write a pretty fair +hand won't see any good reason for swinging a pick. They'll simply pass +the pick over to the fellow who invests, and start a new prospectus. +While the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, they're something +after all; but the walls along the short cuts to Fortune are papered +with only the prospectuses of good intentions—intentions to do the +other fellow good and plenty. +</p> + +<p> +I don't want to question your ability or the purity of your friends' +intentions, but are you sure you know their business as well as they +do? Denver is a lovely city, with a surplus of climate and scenery, +and a lot of people there go home from work every night pushing a +wheelbarrow full of gold in front of them, but at the same time there +is no surplus of <i>that</i> commodity, and most of the fellows who find it +have cut their wisdom teeth on quartz. It isn't reasonable to expect +that you're going to buy gold at fifty cents on the dollar, just +because it hasn't been run through the mint yet. +</p> + +<p> +I simply mention these things in a general way. There are two branches +in the study of riches—getting the money and keeping it from getting +away. When a fellow has saved a thousand dollars, and every nickel +represents a walk home, instead of a ride on a trolley; and every +dollar stands for cigars he didn't smoke and for shows he didn't +see—it naturally seems as if that money, when it's invested, ought to +declare dividends every thirty days. But almost any scheme which +advertises that it will make small investors rich quick is like one of +these Yellowstone geysers that spouts up straight from Hades with a +boom and a roar—it's bound to return to its native brimstone sooner +or later, leaving nothing behind it but a little smoke, and a smell of +burned money—your money. +</p> + +<p> +If a fellow would stop to think, he would understand that when money +comes in so hard, it isn't reasonable to expect that it can go out and +find more easy. But the great trouble is that a good many small +investors don't stop to think, or else let plausible strangers do +their thinking for them. That's why most young men have tucked away +with their college diploma and the picture of their first girl, an +impressive deed to a lot in Nowhere-on-the-Nothingness, or a beautiful +certificate of stock in the Gushing Girlie Oil Well, that has never +gushed anything but lies and promises, or a lovely receipt for money +invested in one of these discretionary pools that are formed for the +higher education of indiscreet fools. While I reckon that every fellow +has one of these certificates of membership in The Great Society of +Suckers, I had hoped that you would buy yours for a little less than +the Highfaluting Lulu is going to cost you. Young men are told that +the first thousand dollars comes hard and that after that it comes +easier. So it does—just a thousand dollars plus interest easier; and +easier through all the increased efficiency that self-denial and +self-control have given you, and the larger salary they've made you +worth. +</p> + +<p> +It doesn't seem like much when you take your savings' bank book around +at the end of the year and get a little thirty or forty dollars +interest added, or when you cash in the coupon on the bond that you've +bought; yet your bank book and your bond are still true to you. But if +you'd had your thousand in one of these 50 per cent. bleached blonde +schemes, it would have lit out long ago with a fellow whose ways were +more coaxing, leaving you the laugh and a mighty small lock of +peroxide gold hair. If you think that saving your first thousand +dollars is hard, you'll find that saving the second, after you've lost +the first, is hell and repeat. +</p> + +<p> +You can't too soon make it a rule to invest only on your own <i>know</i> +and never on somebody else's say so. You may lose some profits by this +policy, but you're bound to miss a lot of losses. Often the best +reason for keeping out of a thing is that everybody else is going into +it. A crowd's always dangerous; it first pushes prices up beyond +reason and then down below common sense. The time to buy is before the +crowd comes in or after it gets out. It'll always come back to a good +thing when it's been pushed up again to the point where it's a bad +thing. +</p> + +<p> +It's better to go slow and lose a good bargain occasionally than to go +fast and never get a bargain. It's all right to take a long chance now +and then, when you've got a long bank account, but it's been my +experience that most of the long chances are taken by the fellows with +short bank accounts. +</p> + +<p> +You'll meet a lot of men in Chicago who'll point out the corner of State +and Madison and tell you that when they first came to the city they were +offered that lot for a hundred dollars, and that it's been the crowning +regret of their lives that they didn't buy it. But for every genuine case +of crowning regret because a fellow didn't buy, there are a thousand +because he did. Don't let it make you feverish the next time you see +one of those Won't-you-come-in-quick-and-get-rich-sudden ads. Freeze +up and on to your thousand, and by and by you'll get a chance to buy a +little stock in the concern for which you're working and which you +know something about; or to take that thousand and one or two more +like it, and buy an interest in a nice little business of the breed +that you've been grooming and currying for some other fellow. But if +your money's tied up in the sudden—millionaire business, you'll have +to keep right on clerking. +</p> + +<p> +A man's fortune should grow like a tree, in rings around the parent +trunk. It'll be slow work at first, but every ring will be a little +wider and a little thicker than the last one, and by and by you'll be +big enough and strong enough to shed a few acorns within easy reaching +distance, and so start a nice little nursery of your own from which +you can saw wood some day. Whenever you hear of a man's jumping +suddenly into prominence and fortune, look behind the popular +explanation of a lucky chance. You'll usually find that these men +manufactured their own luck right on the premises by years of slow +preparation, and are simply realizing on hard work. +</p> + +<p> +Speaking of manufacturing luck on the premises, naturally calls to +mind the story of old Jim Jackson, "dealer in mining properties," and +of young Thornley Harding, graduate of Princeton and citizen of New +York. +</p> + +<p> +Thorn wasn't a bad young fellow, but he'd been brought up by a nice, +hard-working, fond and foolish old papa, in the fond belief that his +job in life was to spend the income of a million. But one week papa +failed, and the next week he died, and the next Thorn found he had to +go to work. He lasted out the next week on a high stool, and then he +decided that the top, where there was plenty of room for a bright +young man, was somewhere out West. +</p> + +<p> +Thorn's life for the next few years was the whole series of hard-luck +parables, with a few chapters from Job thrown in, and then one day he +met old Jim. He seemed to cotton to Thorn from the jump. Explained to +him that there was nothing in this digging gopher holes in the solid +rock and eating Chinaman's grub for the sake of making niggers' wages. +Allowed that he was letting other fellows dig the holes, and that he +was selling them at a fair margin of profit to young Eastern +capitalists who hadn't been in the country long enough to lose their +roll and that trust in Mankind and Nature which was Youth's most +glorious possession. Needed a bright young fellow to help him—someone +who could wear good clothes and not look as if he were in a disguise, +and could spit out his words without chewing them up. Would Thorn join +him on a grub, duds, and commission basis? Would Thorn surprise his +skin with a boiled shirt and his stomach with a broiled steak? You bet +he would, and they hitched up then and there. +</p> + +<p> +They ran along together for a year or more, selling a played-out mine +now and then or a "promising claim," for a small sum. Thorn knew that +the mines which they handled were no Golcondas, but, as he told +himself, you could never absolutely swear that a fellow wouldn't +strike it rich in one of them. +</p> + +<p> +There came a time, though, when they were way down on their luck. The +run of young Englishmen was light, and visiting Easterners were a +little gun-shy. Almost looked to Thorn as if he might have to go to +work for a living, but he was a tenacious cuss, and stuck it out till +one day when Jim came back to Leadville from a near-by camp, where +he'd been looking at some played-out claims. +</p> + +<p> +Jim was just boiling over with excitement. Wouldn't let on what it was +about, but insisted on Thorn's going back with him then and there. +Said it was too big to tell; must be taken in by all Thorn's senses, +aided by his powers of exaggeration. +</p> + +<p> +It took them only a few hours to make the return trip. When Jim came +within a couple of miles of the camp, he struck in among some trees +and on to the center of a little clearing. There he called Thorn's +attention to a small, deep spring of muddy water. +</p> + +<p> +"Thorn," Jim began, as impressive as if he were introducing him to an +easy millionaire, "look at thet spring. Feast yer eyes on it and tell +me what you see." +</p> + +<p> +"A spring, you blooming idiot," Thorn replied, feeling a little +disappointed. +</p> + +<p> +"You wouldn't allow, Thorn, to look at it, thet thar was special pints +about thet spring, would you?" he went on, slow and solemn. "You +wouldn't be willin' to swar thet the wealth of the Hindoos warn't in +thet precious flooid which you scorn? Son," he wound up suddenly, +"this here is the derndest, orneriest spring you ever see. Thet water +is rich enough to be drunk straight." +</p> + +<p> +Thorn began to get excited in earnest now. "What is it? Spit it out +quick?" +</p> + +<p> +"Watch me, sonny," and Jim hung his tin cup in the spring and sat down +on a near-by rock. Then after fifteen silent minutes had passed, he +lifted the cup from the water and passed it over. Thorn almost jumped +out of his jack-boots with surprise. +</p> + +<p> +"Silver?" he gasped. +</p> + +<p> +"Generwine," Jim replied. "Down my way, in Illinois, thar used to be a +spring thet turned things to stone. This gal gives 'em a jacket of +silver." +</p> + +<p> +After Thorn had kicked and rolled and yelled a little of the joy out +of his system, he started to take a drink of the water, but Jim +stopped him with: +</p> + +<p> +"Taste her if you wanter, but she's one of them min'rul springs which +leaves a nasty smack behind." And then he added: "I reckon she's a +winner. We'll christen her the Infunt Fernomerner, an' gin a lib'rul +investor a crack at her." +</p> + +<p> +The next morning Thorn started back, doing fancy steps up the trail. +</p> + +<p> +He hadn't been in Leadville two days before he bumped into an old +friend of his uncle's, Tom Castle, who was out there on some business, +and had his daughter, a mighty pretty girl, along. Thorn sort of let +the spring slide for a few days, while he took them in hand and showed +them the town. And by the time he was through, Castle had a pretty bad +case of mining fever, and Thorn and the girl were in the first stages +of something else. +</p> + +<p> +Castle showed a good deal of curiosity about Thorn's business and how +he was doing, so he told 'em all about how he'd struck it rich, and in +his pride showed a letter which he had received from Jim the day +before. It ran: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Dere Thorn</i>: The Infunt Fernomerner is a wunder and the pile groes +every day. I hav 2 kittles, a skilit and a duzzen cans in the spring +every nite wich is awl it wil hold and days i trys out the silver frum +them wich have caked on nites. This is to dern slo. we nede munny so +we kin dril and get a bigger flo and tanks and bilers and sech. hump +yoursel and sell that third intrest. i hav to ten the kittles now so +no mor frum jim." +</p> + +<p> +"You see," Thorn explained, "we camped beside the spring one night, +and a tin cup, which Jim let fall when he first tasted the water, +discovered its secret. It's just the same principle as those lime +springs that incrust things with lime. This one must percolate through +a bed of ore. There's some quality in the water which acts as a +solvent of the silver, you know, so that the water becomes charged +with it." +</p> + +<p> +Now, Thorn hadn't really thought of interesting Castle as an investor +in that spring, because he regarded his Western business and his +Eastern friends as things not to be mixed, and he wasn't very hot to +have Castle meet Jim and get any details of his life for the past few +years. But nothing would do Castle but that they should have a look at +The Infant, and have it at once. +</p> + +<p> +Well, sir, when they got about a mile from camp they saw Jim standing +in the trail, and smiling all over his honest, homely face. He took +Castle for a customer, of course, and after saying "Howdy" to Thorn, +opened right up: "I reckon Thorn hev toted you up to see thet blessid +infunt as I'm mother, father and wet-nuss to. Thar never was sich a +kid. She's jest the cutest little cuss ever you see. Eh, Thorn?" +</p> + +<p> +"Do you prefer to the er—er—Infant Phenomenon?" asked Castle, all +eagerness. +</p> + +<p> +"The same precious infunt. She's a cooin' to herself over thar in them +pines," Jim replied, and he started right in to explain: "As you see, +Jedge, the precious flooid comes from the bowels of the earth, as full +of silver as sody water of gas; and to think thet water is the mejum. +Nacher's our silent partner, and the blessid infunt delivers the +goods. No ore, no stamps, no sweatin', no grindin', and crushin', and +millin', and smeltin'. Thar you hev the pure juice, and you bile it +till it jells. Looky here," and Jim reached down and pulled out a +skillet. "Taste it! Smell it! Bite it! Lick it! An' then tell me if +Sollermun in all his glory was dressed up like this here!" +</p> + +<p> +Castle handled that skillet like a baby, and stroked it as if he just +naturally loved children. Stayed right beside the spring during the +rest of the day, and after supper he began talking about it with Jim, +while Thorn and Kate went for a stroll along the trail. During the +time they were away Jim must have talked to pretty good purpose, for +no sooner were the partners alone for the night than Jim said to +Thorn: "I hev jest sold the Jedge a third intrest in the Fernomerner +fur twenty thousand dollars." +</p> + +<p> +"I'm not so sure about that," answered Thorn, for he still didn't +quite like the idea of doing business with one of his uncle's friends. +"The Infant looks good and I believe she's a wonder, but it's a new +thing, and twenty thousand's a heap of money to Castle. If it +shouldn't pan out up to the first show-down, I'd feel deucedly cut up +about having let him in. I'd a good deal rather refuse to sell Castle +and hunt up a stranger." +</p> + +<p> +"Don't be a dern fool, son," Jim replied. "He knew we was arter money +to develop, and when he made thet offer I warn't goin' to be sich a +permiscuss Charley-hoss as to refuse. It'd be a burnin' crime not to +freeze to this customer. It takes time to find customers, even for a +good thing like this here, and it's bein' a leetle out of the usual +run will make it slower still." +</p> + +<p> +"But my people East. If Castle should get stuck he'll raise an awful +howl." +</p> + +<p> +Jim grinned: "He'd holler, would he? In course; it might help his +business. Yer the orneriest ostrich fur a man of yer keerful +eddication! Did you hear thet Boston banker what bought the +Cracker-jack from us a-hollerin'? He kept so shet about it, I'll bet, +thet you couldn't a-blasted it outer him." +</p> + +<p> +They argued along until after midnight, but Jim carried his point; and +two weeks later Thorn was in Denver, saying good-by to Kate, and +listening to her whisper, "But it won't be for long, as you'll soon be +able to leave business and come back East," and to Castle yelling from +the rear platform to "Push the Infant and get her sizzling." +</p> + +<p> +Later, as Jim and Thorn walked back to the hotel, the old scoundrel +turned to his partner with a grin and said: "I hev removed the insides +from the Infunt and stored 'em fur future ref'rence. Meanin', in +course," he added, as Thorn gaped up at him like a chicken with the +pip, "the 'lectro-platin' outfit. P'r'aps it would be better to take a +leetle pasear now, but later we can come back and find another orphant +infunt and christen her the Phoenix, which is Greek fur sold agin." +</p> + +<p> +It took Thorn a full minute to comprehend the rascality in which he'd +been an unconscious partner, but when he finally got it through his +head that Jim had substituted the child of a base-born churl for the +Earl's daughter, he fairly raged. Threatened him with exposure and +arrest if he didn't make restitution to Castle, but Jim simply grinned +and asked him whether he allowed to sing his complaint to the police. +Wound up by saying that, even though Thorn had rounded on him, old Jim +was a square man, and he proposed to divide even. +</p> + +<p> +Thorn was simply in the fix of the fellow between the bull and the +bulldog—he had a choice, but it was only whether he would rather be +gored or bitten, so he took the ten thousand, and that night Jim faded +away on a west-bound Pullman, smoking two-bit cigars and keeping the +porter busy standing by with a cork-screw. Thorn took his story and +the ten thousand back to his uncle in the East, and after a pretty +solemn interview with the old man, he went around and paid Castle in +full and resumed his perch on top of the high stool he'd left a few +years before. He never got as far as explaining to the girl in person, +because Castle told him that while he didn't doubt his honesty, he was +afraid he was too easy a mark to succeed in Wall Street. Yet Thorn did +work up slowly in his uncle's office, and he's now in charge of the +department that looks after the investments of widows and orphans, for +he is so blamed conservative that they can't use him in any part of +the business where it's necessary to take chances. +</p> + +<p> +I simply speak of Thorn as an example of why I think you should have a +cool head before you finally buy the Lulu with my money. After all, it +seems rather foolish to pay railroad fares to the West and back for +the sake of getting stuck when there are such superior facilities for +that right here in the East. +</p> + +<p> +Your affectionate father, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +JOHN GRAHAM. +</p> + + + +<hr> + +<a name="CHXIV"></a><p class="ctr"> +No. 14 +</p> + +<p class="addindent"> +From John Graham, at the Omaha branch of Graham & Company, to his son, +Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The old man has been +advised by wire of the arrival of a prospective partner, and that the +mother, the son, and the business are all doing well. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +XIV +</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> +OMAHA, October 6, 1900. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Dear Pierrepont</i>: I'm so blame glad it's a boy that I'm getting over +feeling sorry it ain't a girl, and I'm almost reconciled to it's not +being twins. Twelve pounds, bully! maybe that doesn't keep up the +Graham reputation for giving good weight! But I'm coming home on the +run to heft him myself, because I never knew a fellow who wouldn't lie +a little about the weight of number one, and then, when you led him up +to the hay scales, claim that it's a well-known scientific principle +that children shrink during the first week like a ham in smoke. +Allowing for tare, though, if he still nets ten I'll feel that he's a +credit to the brand. +</p> + +<p> +It's a great thing to be sixty minutes old, with nothing in the world +except a blanket and an appetite, and the whole fight ahead of you; +but it's pretty good, too, to be sixty years old, and a grandpop, with +twenty years of fight left in you still. It sort of makes me feel, +though, as if it were almost time I had a young fellow hitched up +beside me who was strong enough to pull his half of the load and +willing enough so that he'd keep the traces taut on his side. I don't +want any double-team arrangement where I have to pull the load and the +other horse, too. But you seem strong, and you act willing, so when I +get back I reckon we'll hitch for a little trial spin. A good partner +ought to be like a good wife—a source of strength to a man. But it +isn't reasonable to tie up with six, like a Mormon elder, and expect +that you're going to have half a dozen happy homes. +</p> + +<p> +They say that there are three generations between shirt-sleeves and +shirt-sleeves in a good many families, but I don't want any such gap +as that in ours. I hope to live long enough to see the kid with us at +the Stock Yards, and all three of us with our coats off hustling to +make the business hum. If I shouldn't, you must keep the boy strong in +the faith. It makes me a little uneasy when I go to New York and see +the carryings-on of some of the old merchants' grandchildren. I don't +think it's true, as Andy says, that to die rich is to die disgraced, +but it's the case pretty often that to die rich is to be disgraced +afterward by a lot of light-weight heirs. +</p> + +<p> +Every now and then some blame fool stops me on the street to say that +he supposes I've got to the point now where I'm going to quit and +enjoy myself; and when I tell him I've been enjoying myself for forty +years and am going to keep right on at it, he goes off shaking his +head and telling people I'm a money-grubber. He can't see that it's +the fellow who doesn't enjoy his work and who quits just because he's +made money that's the money-grubber; or that the man who keeps right +on is fighting for something more than a little sugar on his bread and +butter. +</p> + +<p> +When a doctor reaches the point where he's got a likely little bunch +of dyspeptics giving him ten dollars apiece for telling them to eat +something different from what they have been eating, and to chew +it—people don't ask him why he doesn't quit and live on the interest +of his dyspepsia money. By the time he's gained his financial +independence, he's lost his personal independence altogether. For it's +just about then that he's reached the age where he can put a little +extra sense and experience into his pills; so he can't turn around +without some one's sticking out his tongue at him and asking him to +guess what he had for dinner that disagreed with him. It never occurs +to these people that he will let his experience and ability go to +waste, just because he has made money enough to buy a little dyspepsia +of his own, and it never occurs to him to quit for any such foolish +reason. +</p> + +<p> +You'll meet a lot of first-class idiots in this world, who regard +business as low and common, because their low and common old grandpas +made money enough so they don't have to work. And you'll meet a lot of +second-class fools who carry a line of something they call culture, +which bears about the same relation to real education that canned +corned beef does to porterhouse steak with mushrooms; and these +fellows shudder a little at the mention of business, and moan over the +mad race for wealth, and deplore the coarse commercialism of the age. +But while they may have no special use for a business man, they always +have a particular use for his money. You want to be ready to spring +back while you're talking to them, because when a fellow doesn't think +it's refined to mention money, and calls it an honorarium, he's +getting ready to hit you for a little more than the market price. I've +had dealings with a good many of these shy, sensitive souls who shrink +from mentioning the dollar, but when it came down to the point of +settling the bill, they usually tried to charge a little extra for the +shock to their refinement. +</p> + +<p> +The fact of the matter is, that we're all in trade when we've got +anything, from poetry to pork, to sell; and it's all foolishness to +talk about one fellow's goods being sweller than another's. The only +way in which he can be different is by making them better. But if we +haven't anything to sell, we ain't doing anything to shove the world +along; and we ought to make room on it for some coarse, commercial +cuss with a sample-case. +</p> + +<p> +I've met a heap of men who were idling through life because they'd +made money or inherited it, and so far as I could see, about all that +they could do was to read till they got the dry rot, or to booze till +they got the wet rot. All books and no business makes Jack a +jack-in-the-box, with springs and wheels in his head; all play and no +work makes Jack a jackass, with bosh in his skull. The right +prescription for him is play when he really needs it, and work whether +he needs it or not; for that dose makes Jack a cracker-jack. +</p> + +<p> +Like most fellows who haven't any too much of it, I've a great deal of +respect for education, and that's why I'm sorry to see so many men who +deal in it selling gold-bricks to young fellows who can't afford to be +buncoed. It would be a mighty good thing if we could put a lot of the +professors at work in the offices and shops, and give these +canned-culture boys jobs in the glue and fertilizer factories until a +little of their floss and foolishness had worn off. For it looks to an +old fellow, who's taking a bird's-eye view from the top of a packing +house, as if some of the colleges were still running their plants with +machinery that would have been sent to the scrap-heap, in any other +business, a hundred years ago. They turn out a pretty fair article as +it is, but with improved machinery they could save a lot of waste and +by-products and find a quicker market for their output. But it's the +years before our kid goes to college that I'm worrying about now. For +I believe that we ought to teach a boy how to use his hands as well as +his brain; that he ought to begin his history lessons in the present +and work back to B.C. about the time he is ready to graduate; that he +ought to know a good deal about the wheat belt before he begins +loading up with the list of Patagonian products; that he ought to post +up on Abraham Lincoln and Grover Cleveland and Thomas Edison first, +and save Rameses Second to while away the long winter evenings after +business hours, because old Rameses is embalmed and guaranteed to keep +anyway; that if he's inclined to be tonguey he ought to learn a living +language or two, which he can talk when a Dutch buyer pretends he +doesn't understand English, before he tackles a dead one which in all +probability he will only give decent interment in his memory. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, it's a fine thing to know all about the past and to have +the date when the geese cackled in Rome down pat, but life is the +present and the future. The really valuable thing which we get from +the past is experience, and a fellow can pick up a pretty fair working +line of that along La Salle Street. A boy's education should begin +with to-day, deal a little with to-morrow, and then go back to day +before yesterday. But when a fellow begins with the past, it's apt to +take him too long to catch up with the present. A man can learn better +most of the things that happened between A.D. 1492 and B.C. 5000 after +he's grown, for then he can sense their meaning and remember what's +worth knowing. But you take the average boy who's been loaded up with +this sort of stuff, and dig into him, and his mind is simply a +cemetery of useless dates from the tombstones of those tough and +sporty old kings, with here and there the jaw-bone of an ass who made +a living by killing every one in sight and unsettling business for +honest men. Some professors will tell you that it's good training +anyway to teach boys a lot of things they're going to forget, but it's +been my experience that it's the best training to teach them things +they'll remember. +</p> + +<p> +I simply mention these matters in a general way. I don't want you to +underestimate the value of any sort of knowledge, and I want you to +appreciate the value of other work besides your own—music and +railroading, ground and lofty tumbling and banking, painting pictures +and soap advertising; because if you're not broad enough to do this +you're just as narrow as those fellows who are running the culture +corner, and your mind will get so blame narrow it will overlap. +</p> + +<p> +I want to raise our kid to be a poor man's son, and then, if it's +necessary, we can always teach him how to be a rich one's. Child +nature is human nature, and a man who understands it can make his +children like the plain, sensible things and ways as easily as the +rich and foolish ones. I remember a nice old lady who was raising a +lot of orphan grandchildren on a mighty slim income. They couldn't have +chicken often in that house, and when they did it was a pretty close +fit and none to throw away. So instead of beginning with the white +meat and stirring up the kids like a cage full of hyenas when the +"feeding the carnivora" sign is out, she would play up the pieces that +don't even get a mention on the bill-of-fare of a two-dollar country +hotel. She would begin by saying in a please-don't-all-speak-at-once +tone, "Now, children, who wants this dear little neck?" and naturally +they all wanted it, because it was pretty plain to them that it was +something extra sweet and juicy. So she would allot it as a reward of +goodness to the child who had been behaving best, and throw in the +gizzard for nourishment. The nice old lady always helped herself last, +and there was nothing left for her but white meat. +</p> + +<p> +It isn't the final result which the nice old lady achieved, but the +first one, that I want to commend. A child naturally likes the simple +things till you teach him to like the rich ones; and it's just as easy +to start him with books and amusements that hold sense and health as +those that are filled with slop and stomach-ache. A lot of mothers +think a child starts out with a brain that can't learn anything but +nonsense; so when Maudie asks a sensible question they answer in +goo-goo gush. And they believe that a child can digest everything from +carpet tacks to fried steak, so whenever Willie hollers they think +he's hungry, and try to plug his throat with a banana. +</p> + +<p> +You want to have it in mind all the time while you're raising this boy +that you can't turn over your children to subordinates, any more than +you can your business, and get good results. Nurses and governesses +are no doubt all right in their place, but there's nothing "just as +good" as a father and mother. A boy doesn't pick up cuss-words when +his mother's around or learn cussedness from his father. Yet a lot of +mothers turn over the children, along with the horses and dogs, to be +fed and broken by the servants, and then wonder from which side of the +family Isobel inherited her weak stomach, and where she picked up her +naughty ways, and why she drops the h's from some words and pronounces +others with a brogue. But she needn't look to Isobel for any +information, because she is the only person about the place with whom +the child ain't on free and easy terms. +</p> + +<p> +I simply mention these things in passing. Life is getting broader and +business bigger right along, and we've got to breed a better race of +men if we're going to keep just a little ahead of it. There are a lot +of problems in the business now—trust problems and labor +problems—that I'm getting old enough to shirk, which you and the boy +must meet, though I'm not doing any particular worrying about them. +While I believe that the trusts are pretty good things in theory, a +lot of them have been pretty bad things in practice, and we shall be +mighty slow to hook up with one. +</p> + +<p> +The trouble is that too many trusts start wrong. A lot of these +fellows take a strong, sound business idea—the economy of cost in +manufacture and selling—and hitch it to a load of the rottenest +business principle in the bunch—the inflation of the value of your +plant and stock—, and then wonder why people hold their noses when +their outfit drives down Wall Street. Of course, when you stop a +little leakage between the staves and dip out the sugar by the bucket +from the top, your net gain is going to be a deficit for somebody. So +if these fellows try to do business as they should do it, by clean and +sound methods and at fair and square prices, they can't earn money +enough to satisfy their stockholders, and they get sore; and if they +try to do business in the only way that's left, by clubbing +competition to death, and gouging the public, then the whole country +gets sore. It seems to me that a good many of these trusts are at a +stage where the old individual character of the businesses from which +they came is dead, and a new corporate character hasn't had time to +form and strengthen. Naturally, when a youngster hangs fire over +developing a conscience, he's got to have one licked into him. +</p> + +<p> +Personally, I want to see fewer businesses put into trusts on the +canned-soup theory—add hot water and serve—before I go into one; +and I want to know that the new concern is going to put a little of +itself into every case that leaves the plant, just as I have always +put in a little of myself. Of course, I don't believe that this stage +of the trusts can last, because, in the end, a business that is +founded on doubtful values and that makes money by doubtful methods +will go to smash or be smashed, and the bigger the business the bigger +the smash. The real trust-busters are going to be the crooked trusts, +but so long as they can keep out of jail they will make it hard for +the sound and straight ones to prove their virtue. Yet once the trust +idea strikes bed-rock, and a trust is built up of sound properties +on a safe valuation; once the most capable man has had time to rise +to the head, and a new breed, trained to the new idea, to grow up +under him; and once dishonest competition—not hard competition—is +made a penitentiary offense, and the road to the penitentiary +macadamized so that it won't be impassable to the fellows who ride in +automobiles—then there'll be no more trust-busting talk, because a +trust will be the most efficient, the most economical, and the most +profitable way of doing business; and there's no use bucking that idea +or no sense in being so foolish as to want to. It would be like +grabbing a comet by the tail and trying to put a twist in it. And +there's nothing about it for a young fellow to be afraid of, because +a good man isn't lost in a big business—he simply has bigger +opportunities and more of them. The larger the interests at stake, the +less people are inclined to jeopardize them by putting them in the +hands of any one but the best man in sight. +</p> + +<p> +I'm not afraid of any trust that's likely to come along for a while, +because Graham & Co. ain't any spring chicken. I'm not too old to +change, but I don't expect to have to just yet, and so long as the +trust and labor situation remains as it is I don't believe that you +and I and the kid can do much better than to follow my old rule: +</p> + +<p> +<i>Mind your own business; own your own business; and run your own +business</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Your affectionate father, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +JOHN GRAHAM. +</p> + + +<p class="ctr"> +THE END. +</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Old Gorgon Graham, by George Horace Lorimer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD GORGON GRAHAM *** + +***** This file should be named 12106-h.htm or 12106-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/1/0/12106/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Beth Trapaga and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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