y the same thing--most business men are suspicious?

When I say in the first sentence of an article on the front page of the
_Saturday Evening Post_--as I did awhile ago--"I would pay people to read
what I am saying on this page,"--everybody believes me. As people read on
in one of my articles in the _Post_, they cannot be kept from seeing how
egregiously I am enjoying my work. Anybody can see it--that I would pay
up to the limit all the money I can get hold of--my own, or anybody's--to
get other people to enjoy reading my stuff as much as I do. Nobody seems
inclined to deny that if I could afford to--or, if I had to--I would pay
ten cents a word to practically any man, to get him to read what I write.

Precisely the way I feel about an article in the _Saturday Evening Post_
so fortunate as to be by me--or, about a book written by g.s.l., a man I
know very well--W. J. ---- feels about a house or about a bank created by
W. J. ----. But if W. J., a designer--contractor--a builder--pretends he
enjoys his creative work in building as much as I enjoy writing--if W.
J., a business man, were to go around telling people or revealing to
people that he would like to hire them to be his customers by handing
back to them twenty, thirty or forty per cent of his agreed upon profits
when he gets through (which is what he practically does over and over
again) there are very few business men who would not say at first sight
that W. J. is a man who ought to be watched.

And he is too, but for precisely turned around reasons most people have
to be watched for. W. J. in designing and constructing a house, or a bank
for a client, sets as his cost estimate a ten per cent maximum profit for
himself, as a margin to work on; aiming at six or five per cent profit
for himself, on small contracts and at a four, three or two and one-half
per cent profit for himself on million dollar ones. Changes and
afterthoughts from his clients in carrying out a contract are inevitable.
W. J. wants a margin on which to allow for contingencies and for his
customers' afterthought.

The three things that interest W. J. in business are: his work on a
perfect house, his work on a perfect customer and his work on making
enough money to keep people from bothering his work.

A perfect house is a house built just as he said it would be which comes
out costing less than he said it would cost--possibly a check on his
client's dinner plate the first night he dines in it.