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 letter writing as a business asset, but perhaps only when immediate business is in sight. In a moment of thoughtlessness I confided in a friend not long ago my intention shortly to buy a motor car. He, lacking something to talk about, disclosed the information to a second friend, who had a connection with the automobile business. Then the news spread, and at once my mail became heavy with letters. Most of these were circular letters devised cunningly to imitate typewriting, and so phrased as to seem like a personal appeal to me; but the disguise was thin and most of them went into the wastepaper basket without my even reading them to the end. I hate the multigraphed letter—it never deceives even an infant. I feel about it as I do when an acquaintance says to me, "Drop around and take dinner with us any time." His invitation has nothing personal or definite in it and is not one I should think of accepting. It makes no intimate appeal.

One of the letters, however, did interest me because it was personal, and it came from a man who had previously shown some interest in me. He had written me