"Well, Mr. Rice is a very busy man," is his explanation, "and I suppose he has Not yet got around to it."
But in reality the fact that he is busy is usually the last reason why a man does not reply to a letter. The really busy man must have system or his work piles up. He clears his desk daily knowing that new duties and obligations will be upon him tomorrow. I write to such a man on Monday and by Wednesday morning I have his reply. He has no time to waste in useless temporizing and delay. The busy man decides things at once and gets them done; it is the lazy man and the loafer and the procrastinator whom one never hears from, and the man who has no regular system of doing things.
Not long ago I published a brief article on the subject of acknowledging letters, especially letters of sympathy and congratulation. Any number of people to whom I had at one time or another written such a letter called me up or spoke to me, or wrote me about the matter, and the tenor of their communications was that it had never occurred to them that such a letter required an acknowledgment. One
