Uncle Mose owns and operates an "exclusive shoe-shining parlor" in a little Northwestern town, and, as customers are rather scarce thereabouts, he can't afford to offend any of them. But his "parlor" has to be run on a strict cash basis. So when a man a little too well known to Uncle Mose as "slow pay" about town came in to have his shoes shined and suggested to the old negro a desire to pay at a later date, Uncle Mose did some quick thinking.
"I'se sorry, boss; I sure is," he replied with diplomatic suavity; "but I jes' cain't do it. You see, de banker on de nex' cohner an' me—we done made a 'greement dat ef I didn't loan money he wouldn't shine shoes, an' I jes' cain't break dat 'greement."
Diplomacy has been defined as the art of letting someone else have your way.
DISARMAMENT
Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts
Given to redeem the human mind from ERROR,
There were no need of arsenals and forts.