Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/97

 It is a great delight to find an exception. I have in mind one man who always answers my letters with a promise of payment in the near future. He has been doing this for years, and though he has never paid a cent, I like him for his courtesy. He is a gentleman, if he is a liar, and I should a thousand times rather do business with him than with the fellow, who having given his word, ignores all communications advising him of his obligation, or who is peeved because having made a pledge he should be expected by anyone to redeem it.

The men who paid the most readily were not always the men who could do so with the least sacrifice. The man who was first to cancel his ten notes was a young fellow working for fifty dollars a month, who without notice from me paid the first five notes when they came due and then discounted the last five at five per cent and took them all up. I have more than once been interested in seeing that the men who can most readily return to their alma mater to see a football game or to attend the annual dance are most likely to find it difficult to pay when a chapter house note comes due. Whether or not a man can get money is often determined by what it is to be spent for.

The men who have not yet paid a single note, though the entire ten are now past due, are in general prosperous fellows quite well able to meet these obligations easily. These men have never