Examples

A. B. is the kind of business man you must avoid. I can never get a straightforward answer from him, He will not, or cannot, speak with simple frankness. He conducts business upon so sublimely philosophical a conception that every clerk he has is afraid to meet him. He says he will probably, that is perhaps, or to speak with absolute accuracy, he will, hypothetically, buy himself a new hat when Orion is in conjunction with Arcturus, and the wind is blowing south by south-west, unless circumstances should take a turn in a direction which seems to indicate that upon the whole it may be advisable — and so he adds word to word until you wish he would buy a new head as well as a new hat. This man is a bag of wind, without the bag. One day, before I knew him well, I innocently remarked that we were

having miserable weather, whereupon he said, “I feel that remarks of that kind, or rather criticisms of that sort, are not unlikely, unless the mind has due regard to the scheme, or shall I say plan, under which we are living” Here I rang a bell and sent for a constable, in imagination. This man failed as a solicitor in a small town. He was an elaborate

bore.

C. D. was a man fertile in schemes. He was never

more than about fifty pounds in debt, but then he always was in debt fifty pounds. When the creditor wanted the fifty pounds,

-the debtor borrowed that amount of another

friend, and having done so he went out to supper with a neighbour, and said that his anxiety had been mercifully relieved. He did this all the time I knew him. He was a man of great placidity of mind, with some liking for political conversation, and especially for political conversation about ten in the morning. He was of opinion that if he had been brought up in some other line of business he would have made a figure in the parish, and might even have been elected to serve on the board of guardians. This, quite an honest conviction, enabled him to borrow the fifty pounds with the subtle grace of a man who was conferring an honour upon the lender. He never would think of borrowing asmaller sum. There was a respectability about the round fifty which made the handling of it more like a banking transaction than like common borrowing.

E. F. was unquestionably a growler. Yes: I will not change the term, but I will repeat it, EH. F. was a growler. He growled all day long. The moment he entered the counting-house the clerks felt that all the blinds had been drawn, and the hour of retribution had struck its solemn tone. Business was always bad. It was worse and worse. Hven when customers paid their accounts, H. F. remarked that they only did so because they dared not do otherwise; and when they doubled their orders, he said that they were a selfish lot, who wanted to show off, and prepare the way for taking him in; “but I’ve got my eye upon them,” he remarked, in the bitterest of human tones. When a clerk was ill, he was soon made to repent the infatuation, and given to understand that there was one man in the world who saw straight through him, and rightly estimated the dissimulation with

which the plotting deceiver sought to impose F upon the unwary and the benevolent. EH. F. had no amusements, took no relaxation, disapproved of bank holidays upon high moral ground, and turned into sourness the very sweetest milk of human kindness. On the day of E. F.’s funeral, not only did all the clerks spend a happy day up the river, but even the office dog made up a long-standing quarrel with another dog in the neighbourhood, and gambolled with the brute, to his speechless astonishment.

G. H. was no growler. A sweeter soul never breathed, or a gentler, or, on the whole, a happier. But G. H. was always a day after the fair. He had quite mistaken the date, and could never

tell how he happened to make what he called such “a droll mistake.” G. H. came up with a beaming smile to do on Thursday what had been done on Wednesday. He wrote his letter in a neat but feeble hand; and, in order to make sure of posting it, he put it carefully into his right-hand breast-pocket, where it slumbered peacefully for a whole week. G. H. was fond of a little music, and even on the morning of market-day would sing how Margaret dropped the milk-pail, in a voice which suggested that his throat was a crow’s nest, and that the whole brood was dying of bronchitis. He said it put him in good spirits, and, as it were, gave him a lift he did not know how, and sent him spinning round, he did not exactly know where. G. H. was of opinion that business should be less of a toil and more of a pleasure, and that the day should always close with a nice shrimp-tea, say about 5, or it might even be 5.30 P.M. He was willing to make that concession, and to say 5.30 P.M., sharp, as business was a different thing since the telegraph came in. G. H. often spoke of retiring to a ‘“willa,” but never retired.

I. J. was a bouncer. ‘Never had a headache, sir, and never mean to.” I. J. “knew a thing” when he saw it. He made some dark speeches, too, that no man could fully comprehend, and which were not all explained or simplified by the wink which made them emphatic. His favourite maxim he expressed ungrammatically but tersely as “ten and five’s fifteen.” There was evidently an awful depth in that brief remark, and an amount of inferential argument which threw opposition into despair. I. J. never went further in the way of explanation than to say that he knew how to put this and that together, and how to find his walking-stick by the light of another man’s lantern. ‘See that nest of drawers?” he would inquire, pointing to an addition to his conveniences in the shop. ‘What do you think it cost?” “I have no idea.” ‘No, that is true. Cost thirty shillings. Why, sir, the bare wood was never bought for that money.” If you timidly inquired how the poor carpenter lived, I. J. would remind you that very few men seemed to know, or at all events to remember, that “ten and five’s fifteen.” The remark might leave many things to be: desired, but I, J. would never add to it.

K. [. was a business man of quite a cheerful sort, who lived above the counting-house, and made his shop into a kind of day nursery for his numerous children. Go in when you would, om and Jack, and Mary and Catchey, the twins, and a baby were all on the floor, or behind the counter, or tumbling over one another on the stairs which led up to the domestic regions. K. L. admitted with frankness that he was ‘as jolly as a sandboy,” and that nothing on this base-ball of an earth gave him one moment’s uneasiness.

K. L. kept no “regular books;” he had a memorandum book or two in a drawer upstairs, ‘‘ but, lor’ bless you, sir,” he would say, with infinite good humour, “I can always tell who is owing me anything, and send in a bill some time about Christmas. My plan,” he would explain to the sallow sons of anxiety, “is just to go on from day to day, you know, and just take the first coach that is going to start, you know, and just rub along, you know, and be thankful that every lane has a turning.” This was a handy, if not a profound philosophy, and being associated with a superb digestion it was quite enough for K. L. He was a shopkeeper in every bone of his body. As he stood at his shop door in the morning, his head glistening with hair-oil, his face shining with good - humour, rubbing his hands into a friendly glow, and nodding benignly to faces which he supposed he saw in the opposite windows, he was the very embodiment of a shopkeeper who took a keen delight in retail, and regarded foreign politics with insular suspicion. A cheerful soul was the stout K. L.; when he buried his wife, no one would have known that there had been a funeral in the house but for the extra hair-oil which he used by way of paying respect to her memory. K. L. lived and died in the retail trade.

M. N. was a sly man, who picked people to pieces

when they were unaware that he was taking any notice of them. He heard all their plans, but never divulged his own. Nobody knew what money he made or what income he had. His feeble, sniggering kind of laugh often made people think he was somewhat of an imbecile, but M. N. was quite capable of going about without assistance. It was remarkable to observe how people dealt with

him, as if they had taken pity upon him,

and were consequently disposed to spend more money with him than with anybody else. He seemed such a nice man. He seemed, too, so very much obliged to his customers, and so deeply touched by the kindness which had deigned to recognise his insignificant and unworthy existence. His customers were bound to take an article or two more than they first intended, or they would accuse themselves of cruelty to a most harmless and deserving neighbour. ‘So deeply grateful,” he would say, when a bobbin of thread was bought, that the customer was bound to take a couple, and promise to call in soon and have two more. ‘““My neighbours are so very good,” he would remark; ‘what should I do without them?” M. N. was (like many an imprudently prudent man) induced to take shares in a Cornish mine. Need I add more? I will only add that, as might have been expected, he slyly hanged himself behind a chest of drawers in” the spare bed-room whilst his wife was at church.

O. P. was one of the most extraordinary men I have ever known. He was young, infinitely energetic, most fertile in resource, and utterly unsparing in his endeavours to accomplish his purpose. In the matter of ability, invention, energy, and rapidity of movement, he stands in my memory at this moment without a rival. He seemed to have everything but a conscience. Nothing would stand in his way when he had made up his mind to compass a given object. He was skilful, too, in his baseness. All his lies had just a little colouring of truth, and all his thefts were excused by the impulses of a haste that seemed to be regarded rather as a misfortune than the settled condition of a crime. Whilst other men were thinking how they would do a thing, O. P. simply went out and did it. He could work in the darkness as well as in the light. I never saw the wall of difficulty over which he could not vault ina moment. He always addressed himself to the immediate fancy and necessity of his hearer. O. P. was emphatically a man of more than Oriental prodigality of promises. He certainly succeeded from a financial point of view, married into a prosperous family, and surrounded himself with all the conditions of a really comfortable physical existence. But he was not a successful man in

the deepest sense of the term. His success

was failure. The heart of poverty was in the very abundance of his wealth. No man really respected him; certainly, no soul ever went to him in the hour of sorrow; and certainly, no tears were shed when he passed away to his account. Let me warn you, with all possible moral passion, to beware of imitating so wretched a career. Its brilliance was but a pale gilding; in it there was nothing of sterling gold and enduring value.

Q). &. was really the kind of man I should like you

to imitate: a man of clear mind and truly generous heart, always devising some liberal thing, and always carrying it out with the economy which can afford to be generous. There was nothing wasteful about Q. R., and yet Q. R.’s hand was always open to help the cause of the deserving poor. His mental penetration was equalled by his moral integrity. One of his favourite mottoes was, “Always have a margin.” Q. R. meant that if he was owing a sovereign, he had at least thirty shillings to pay it with; if he promised to send a goose, he would try to send a swan; if the train started at ten, Q. R. would be on the platform at least a quarter of an hour before the appointed time; beside the clothes in which he stood up, he was sure to have an alternative suit or two in the portmanteau; and when he was pleasantly chaffed by his companions and comrades as to this kind of operation, he would always reply, with a beaming smile, “Be sure to have a margin.” I never knew Q. R.*behind time, nor take a small view of any question that was raised for discussion; nor pinch the other contracting party in any business arrangement; and as for even suggesting falsehood, by look or tone, he was simply incapable of such calculated wickedness.

S. 7. was a man of another type, yet with many of the best characteristics of Q. R. He was a royal soul. Perhaps a quieter man never undertook to do business; but for the very reason that he was quiet, he was able to do a great deal more business than many noisy men. Whatever he touched blossomed into success. In fact, it was a favourite saying of his that he could not afford to fail. Once let him take up a thing, and no number of misfortunes or mischances could compel him to relinquish his hold. The soundness of his. policy was abundantly proved by the number and reality of his successes. I think I never knew a man who could answer a question which he did not wish to answer, with a greater show of having answered it, and having done so with an abundance of civility. 8. T. was not a ready speaker, rushing upon his subjects without a moment’s consideration; he always had two or three introductory coughs, or words without any special meaning in them, of which he availed himself before giving his formal reply. Thus, by taking a little breathing time, he was able to give answers that were at once cautious and obliging. I asked him what some particular article he was then dealing in was, in the

SIR WILLIAM MARTHUOUR, M.P. gI

hope that he would explain to me its composition and utility. His reply was: “This is a proprietary article, the sale of which I am endeavouring to push in Great Britain by every means in my power.” ‘This was said with a most genial smile, and as if it had conveyed to my mind the most detailed and luminous information. S. T. was simply perfect in the act of representing civility without imparting enlightenment. You felt that you had been answered, and so answered that further inquiry would amount to intrusion and annoyance. Let it be your object in business to give as little information as possible. After S. T. had left a man, the man was sure to feel that he had told 8. T. everything he knew, but that S. T. had not conveyed to him a single item of information. In all business transactions beware of chattering fluency.

At this point I will set before you the programme drawn up by a very young man for his own guidance. Study it earnestly. The young man became Sir Wititiam M‘Artuur, M.P., Lord Mayor of London : —

Manchester, Monday, 9th Nov. — I find no situation so unfavourable to personal piety as that of commercial traveller. There is so much to excite and engage the attention, and to lead the heart away from God, that, without constant watchfulness and prayer, the enemy will be sure to have the advantage. Nor is this all. There are peculiar temptations which Satan knows well how to apply, and that in circumstances favourable to the power of those temptations. O God, pardon, I beseech Thee, my past wanderings of heart and life, and enable me to consecrate all my powers to Thee!

I have determined, as far as possible, to abide by the following rules : —

1. To rise every morning at half-past five, or six o’clock at farthest.

2. To devote at least one hour to reading in the morning.

3. To spend an hour in reading the Bible, Wesley’s Sermons, and in prayer before going to business.

4. To endeavour to secure twenty or thirty minutes for the same exercise during the day.

5. Not to walk about the streets when the business of the day is over, but to keep in the house, unless invited to spend the evening with a friend. And if so, to walk home the nearest possible way, and to be in bed at eleven o’clock at farthest.

6. To endeavour to keep a calm recollection of spirit when engaged in purchasing goods, remembering at all times, “Thou God seest me.”

7. I will read over these rules morning and night, and examine myself whether I have kept them or not.

8. Convinced of my own total and absolute helplessness, I will cast myself for support and strength upon that God who has desired me “in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, to make my requests known unto Him.”

O Lord God ALMIGHTY, do Thou enable me to put these resolutions into practice. Grant me the aid of Thy Holy Spirit! forgive the past, and enable me to live to Thee in future, and in all things to promote Thy honour and glory, through Jesus Christ, my Lord.

Amen.