Being a millionaire is a trade like a doctor's--you must work up
through every grade of earning, saving, spending and giving, or you're
no more fit to be trusted with a fortune than a quack with human life.
For there's no trade in the world, except the doctor's, on which the
lives and the happiness of so many people depend as the millionaire's;
and I might add that there's no other in which there's so much
malpractice.

Your affectionate father,

JOHN GRAHAM.

No. 10

From John Graham, at Mount Clematis, Michigan, to his son, Pierrepont,
at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The young man has done famously
during the first year of his married life, and the old man has decided
to give him a more important position.

X

MOUNT CLEMATIS, January 1, 1900.

_Dear Pierrepont_: Since I got here, my rheumatism has been so bad
mornings that the attendant who helps me dress has had to pull me over
to the edge of the bed by the seat of my pajamas. If they ever give
way, I reckon I'll have to stay in bed all day. As near as I can
figure out from what the doctor says, the worse you feel during the
first few days you're taking the baths, the better you really are. I
suppose that when a fellow dies on their hands they call it a cure.

I'm by the worst of it for to-day, though, because I'm downstairs.
Just now the laugh is on an old boy with benevolent side-whiskers,
who's sliding down the balusters, and a fat old party, who looks like
a bishop, that's bumping his way down with his feet sticking out
straight in front of him. Shy away from these things that end in an
ism, my boy. From skepticism to rheumatism they've an ache or a pain
in every blamed joint.

Still, I don't want to talk about my troubles, but about your own.
Barton leaves us on the first, and so we shall need a new assistant
general manager for the business. It's a ten-thousand-dollar job, and
a nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-dollar man can't fill it.
From the way in which you've handled your department during the past
year, I'm inclined to think that you can deliver that last dollar's
worth of value. Anyway, I'm going to try you, and you've got to make
good, because if you should fail it would be a reflection on my
judgment as a merchant and a blow to my pride as a father. I could
bear up under either, but the combination would make me feel like
firing you.

As a matter of fact, I can't make you general manager; all I can do is
to give you