Page:Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son.djvu/269

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LETTERS TO HIS SON

I don't know when I've seen a more surprised man than Lem. He couldn't cuss even. But as he never came back, to ask for any explanation, I reckon he figured it out that they wanted to get rid of him because he was too good for the town.

I simply mention Lem in passing as an example of the fact that when you're through sizing up the other fellow, it's a good thing to step back from yourself and see how you look. Then add fifty per cent, to your estimate of your neighbor for virtues that you can't see, and deduct fifty per cent, from yourself for faults that you've missed in your inventory, and you'll have a pretty accurate result.

Your affectionate father,
John Graham.

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