Page:Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son.djvu/111

Rh It isn't the little extra money that you may make for the house by learning the fundamental business virtues which counts so much as it is the effect that it has on your character and that of those about you, and especially on the judgment of the old man when he's casting around for the fellow to fill the vacancy just ahead of you. He's pretty apt to pick some one who keeps separate ledger accounts for work and for fun, who gives the house sixteen ounces to the pound, and, on general principles, to pass by the one who is late at the end where he ought to be early, and early at the end where he ought to be late.

I simply mention these things in passing, but, frankly, I am afraid that you have a streak of the Bill in you; and you can't be a good clerk, let alone a partner, until you get it out. I try not to be narrow when I'm weighing up a young fellow, and to allow for soakage and leakage, and then to throw