Page:Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son.djvu/125

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LETTERS TO HIS SON

but it's bankruptcy to tell about them. It's all right to say nothing about the dead but good, but it's better to apply the rule to the living, and especially to the house which is paying your salary.

Just one word before I close, as old Doc Hoover used to say, when he was coming into the stretch, but still a good ways off from the benediction. I have noticed that you are inclined to be a little chesty and starchy around the office. Of course, it's good business, when a fellow hasn't much behind his forehead, to throw out his chest and attract attention to his shirt-front. But as you begin to meet the men who have done something that makes them worth meeting you will find that there are no "keep off the grass" or "beware of the dog" signs around their premises, and that they don't motion to the orchestra to play slow music while they talk.

Superiority makes every man feel its equal. It is courtesy without condescen-

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