a merchant's
order. Most of the men who mixed their business and their drinks have
failed, and the new owners take their business straight. Of course,
some one has to pay for the drinks that a drummer sets up. The drummer
can't afford it on his salary; the house isn't really in the
hospitality business; so, in the end, the buyer always stands treat.
He may not see it in his bill for goods, but it's there, and the smart
ones have caught on to it.

After office hours, the number of drinks a fellow takes may make a
difference in the result to his employer, but during business hours
the effect of one is usually as bad as half a dozen. A buyer who
drinks hates a whisky breath when he hasn't got one himself, and a
fellow who doesn't drink never bothers to discover whether he's being
talked to by a simple or a compound breath. He knows that some men who
drink are unreliable, and that unreliable men are apt to represent
unreliable houses and to sell unreliable goods, and he hasn't the time
or the inclination to stop and find out that this particular salesman
has simply had a mild snort as an appetizer and a gentle soother as a
digester. So he doesn't get an order, and the house gets a black eye.
This is a very, very busy world, and about the only person who is
really interested in knowing just how many a fellow has had is his
wife, and she won't always believe him.

Naturally, when you expect so much from your men, they have a right
to expect a good deal from you. If you want them to feel that your
interests are theirs, you must let them see that their interests are
yours. There are a lot of fellows in the world who are working just for
glory, but they are mostly poets, and you needn't figure on finding
many of them out at the Stock Yards. Praise goes a long way with a good
man, and some employers stop there; but cash goes the whole distance,
and if you want to keep your growing men with you, you mustn't expect
them to do all the growing. Small salaries make slow workers and
careless clerks; because it isn't hard to get an underpaid job. But a
well-paid man sticketh closer than a little brother-in-law-to-be to the
fellow who brings the candy. For this reason, when I close the books at
the end of the year, I always give every one, from the errand boys up,
a bonus based on the size of his salary and my profits. There's no way
I've ever tried that makes my men take an interest in the size of my
profits like giving them a share.