Part 5 (1/2)

ESTABLISHED BEHIND A COUNTER

in a general store and intrusted with the great secret of a cost-mark, fully as important a secret, let me a.s.sure you, as you can buy in the most secret of places! What spot in your character will ”wear down” the quickest? When you were little it was your toes. They were copper-plated. Now the wear falls where copper will not protect you.

Nothing but experience will now serve as the copper did then. The first place that ”rubs” will be

YOUR TONGUE.

When you have conquered the natural inclination to be what is familiarly known as a ”smarty,” there is still a greater wisdom to acquire. Avoid hearing, where it is not absolutely necessary, anything that you will have to keep secret. The less secrets you have the less discretion will be necessary to protect them. After you have heard a thing from your employer, keep it to yourself. The youth who talks about his employer's business must have other marvelous faculties to succeed in life. He is a Blind Tom. He plays the piano, but the wonder is how he does it. It must be that it would hurt your feelings if you heard another merchant say of your employer that he keeps a pretty good boy, except that

HE ”BLABS A GOOD DEAL.”

If you can shut up your mouth now, you can keep it shut when you get to be Secretary of the Treasury and a whole syndicate of bankers are trying to pump out of you whether you mean to pay off $100,000,000 of 5 per cent bonds the next week, or merely reduce the interest 1-1/2 per cent.

If they could tell, they could make a million dollars, and unless you have been all your life a discreet man, be a.s.sured they _will_ tell. If your employer's rivals in business find out through you where your people get a certain line of goods, how much is paid for it, or

THE TIME ON WHICH IT IS BOUGHT,

be a.s.sured you will never succeed either as a man in business for yourself, or as a worker under the direction of others. Your employer may be embarra.s.sed and the fatal knowledge may have come into your unlucky ears. You will hear it whispered all around you. Why? Because no one knows ”for sure.” Everybody wants to see if you know anything about it. Can you not see how much luckier you would have been had you really known nothing of the state of things? A word, a look, from you, may turn from your employer just the helping hand that would have carried him across a tight place. How many battles have been won by the arrival, just in time, of a reinforcement! Make it a point that, if you are inclined

TO ”BLOW YOUR AFFAIRS,”

you were not cut out for ”business.” You had better become a lecturer, a farmer, or something else, and occupy a field where industry alone will save all your interests. Remember the miserable barber of King Midas in mythology. The King had been cursed by the offended G.o.d Apollo with a.s.ses' ears. To hide his deformity he had his barber dress the hair over the ears, and the barber was then sworn with an awful oath of secrecy. But the ”tonsorial artist” (as they call him in the city!) was one of those people who could not stand the pressure. He went out in the field and dug a little hole, and

INTO THIS HOLE HE BREATHED THE SECRET

that His Majesty had been smitten by Apollo. What was the astonishment of the world at hearing the reeds that grew hard by whispering among themselves, whenever the wind blew them confidentially together, ”King Midas hath a.s.ses' ears!”

Be in mortal fear of the first error in this regard. When a boy has made a record for bad, it seems to hang to him. The fact that he has told something which he ought to have kept to himself is quoted against him until it becomes a positive habit to speak about it every time his name is mentioned.

”Jimmie, where's your outside man? I heard he was in town. His cousin asked me to inquire.”

”Oh! no! he's not in town. He went out on the road last night. He will be in Eagertown to-morrow, Brightside Wednesday, and Upearly Sat.u.r.day.”

That is exactly what was wanted out of you, and you must excuse your questioner if he hurries on, so as not to be seen pumping you any longer than is necessary.

Now this style of gaining information is low and contemptible, but of two boys who talked, one of whom said a good deal that did not amount to much, learning a good deal that did, and the other letting out a great deal and learning nothing, there can be little doubt of the business success of the first as compared to that of the second.

Put a copper-toe on your tongue. Remember that Gen. Grant made a great part of his fame by letting other folks do his talking.

COURTESY.

When my friends are blind of one eye, I look at them in profile.

--Joubert.