He dropped by the office last week, a little bent and seedy, but all in a glow and trembling with excitement in the old way. Told me he was President of the Klondike Exploring, Gold Prospecting and Immigration Company, with a capital of ten millions. I guessed that he was the board of directors and the capital stock and the exploring and the prospecting and the immigrating, too—everything, in fact, except the business card he’d sent in; for Charlie always had a gift for nosing out printers who’d trust him. Said that for the sake of old times he’d let me have a few thousand shares at fifty cents, though they would go to par in a year. In the end we compromised on a loan of ten dollars, and Charlie went away happy.
The swamps are full of razor-backs like Charlie, fellows who’d rather make a million a night in their heads than five dollars a day in cash. I have always found it cheaper to lend a man of that build a little money than to hire him. As a matter of fact, I have never known a fellow who was smart enough to think for the house days and for himself nights. A man who tries that is usually a pretty poor thinker, and he isn’t much good to either; but if there’s any choice the house gets the worst of it.
I simply mention these little things in a general way. If you can take my word for some of them you are going to save yourself a whole lot of trouble. There are others which I don’t speak of because life is too short and because it seems to afford a fellow a heap of satisfaction to pull the trigger for himself to see if it is loaded; and a lesson learned at the muzzle has the virtue of never being forgotten.
You report to Milligan at the yards at eight sharp on the fifteenth. You’d better figure on being here on the fourteenth, because Milligan’s a pretty touchy Irishman, and I may be able to give you a point or two that will help you to keep on his mellow side. He’s apt to feel a little sore at taking on in his department a man whom he hasn’t passed on.
Your affectionate father,
John Graham.
No. 6
FROM John Graham, en route to Texas, to Pierrepont Graham, care of Graham & Co., Union Stock Yards, Chicago. Mr. Pierrepont has, entirely without intention, caused a little confusion in the mails, and it has come to his father’s notice in the course of business.