Page:Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son.djvu/110

Rh that time in this world was too valuable to be frittered away. If he'd get that in his head he didn't think he'd be so apt to trifle with eternity; and if he didn't get it, religion wouldn't be of any special use to him.

A big merchant finds himself in Doc Hoover's fix pretty often. There are too many likely young sinners in his office to make it worth while to bother long with the Bills. Very few men are worth wasting time on beyond a certain point, and that point is soon reached with a fellow who doesn't show any signs of wanting to help. Naturally, a green man always comes to a house in a pretty subordinate position, and it isn't possible to make so much noise with a firecracker as with a cannon. But you can tell a good deal by what there is left of the boy, when you come to inventory him on the fifth of July, whether he'll be safe to trust with a cannon next year.