Page:Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son.djvu/89

Rh who is. Give most men a good listener and most women enough note-paper and they'll tell all they know. Money talks—but not unless its owner has a loose tongue, and then its remarks are always offensive. Poverty talks, too, but nobody wants to hear what it has to say.

I simply mention these things in passing because I'm afraid you're apt to be the fellow who's doing the talking; just as I'm a little afraid that you're sometimes like the hungry drummer at the dollar-a-day house—inclined to kill your appetite by eating the cake in the centre of the table before the soup comes on.

Of course, I'm glad to see you swing into line and show the proper spirit about coming on here and going to work; but you mustn't get yourself all "het up" before you take the plunge, because you're bound to find the water pretty cold at first. I've seen a good many young fellows pass through and out of this office. The first