FAR REMOVED FROM TAM O'SHANTER IN HABITS
and selfishness. I can hope that you are a young man who, in going on a fishing excursion with some reputable person of your age, will not cast a cloud on the mind of that person's employer, and cause him to fear that his clerk is falling instead of rising in self-esteem. Let my hope be taken as an enduring fact. Now I feel I am on safe ground. You are building a structure. On your west party-wall your neighbor is also erecting one. He is building it so that it will fall down—that is plain. When it falls it will involve you in its ruins because the middle wall supports both edifices. What do you do? You go to the authorities, and they make him take down his house brick by brick. In this way the law surrounds you with its beneficent protection, and you need not suffer from the faults of others. But alas!
"Adieu, valor! rust, rapier! be still, drum: For your manager is in love; yea, he loveth."
MORALLY,
when you put up a party-wall you must abide by the conclusion. If your companion reflect credit on you, then you are doubly strong, but if he pull you down, then there is no relief and little sympathy. Let us suppose that, in an absolutely evil hour, you have learned to play billiards. A brother-clerk says: "Let us play a string at dinner-time!" Across your mind flits the bright green table, the beautiful ivory balls, the wonderful angle which you discovered the last time you played, and, compared with the dull routine of the store, you momentarily feel that
A GAME OF BILLIARDS
would be truly beneficial. So, at noon you go. There never was a game of billiards that would end precisely at the moment you should leave for duty. There never were two employes who played billiards who did not cheat their employers out of considerable time. There never was an employer who would not resent this injustice. The comrade who does not play billiards will, sooner or later, get an absolute advantage over you. You will come in, complaining of your luck only to find that your slow-going comrade has "got something" which you have missed. Employers do not want head-clerks or partners who hang around billiard saloons or livery stables. "He who comes from the kitchen smells of its smoke." What can you get at a billiard saloon? You can get the good opinion of some person who is never civil to anybody. His incivility has a charm for your young mind. You naturally imitate him.
YOU TRY IT ON A CUSTOMER.
He says: "Have you any buttons like this?" showing one about fourteen years old. You look at him insolently and say "Nah!" (meaning "No, sir"). This makes the other clerk (who plays billiards with you) laugh very heartily, but it makes your employer laugh out of the other corner of his mouth, for he has no business to keep such a clerk, and the customer knows it. The customer may avenge himself by refusing an extension on a note which he holds, and that note, possibly, may have your employer's name on it! The mistake you make in this particular case is in applying the manners of a billiard-saloon to the uses of a place of business. A very ordinary-looking old man was one day standing in a great bank in New York City. He was talking with a friend, and the friend spoke of desiring to have a draft cashed which had been drawn in his favor. Knowing that the old man banked at that place, he asked him to step up to the paying teller and identify the drawer of the money. This the old man, naturally, attempted to do. He said: "I know this gentleman to be Alvin H. Hamilton." The paying teller looked at the old man and judged him by his clothes. He said: "I don't know you at all, sir! Pass along." This did not please the old man. He expostulated. "Pass along!" yelled the teller, looking ominously toward the policeman, who edged toward the group.