packing-house after this should carry the call to a better
life into some humble home.

I let him lug that sort of stuff to the trough till he got tired, and
then I looked him square in the eye and went right at him with:

"Jake, what you been putting in that lard?" because I knew mighty well
that there was something in it which had never walked on four feet and
fattened up on fifty-cent corn and then paid railroad fare from the
Missouri River to Chicago. There are a good many things I don't know,
but hogs ain't one of them.

Jake just grinned at me and swore that there was nothing in his lard
except the pure juice of the hog; so I quit fooling with him and took
a can of "Driven Snow" around to our chemist. It looked like lard and
smelt like lard--in fact, it looked better than real lard: too white
and crinkly and tempting on top. And the next day the chemist came
down to my office and told me that "Driven Snow" must have been driven
through a candle factory, because it had picked up about twenty per
cent. of paraffin wax somewhere.

Of course, I saw now why Jake was able to undersell us all, but it was
mighty important to knock out "Driven Snow" with the trade in just the
right way, because most of our best customers had loaded up with it.
So I got the exact formula from the chemist and had about a hundred
sample cans made up, labeling each one "Wandering Boy Leaf Lard," and
printing on the labels: "This lard contains twenty per cent. of
paraffin."

I sent most of these cans, with letters of instruction, to our men
through the country. Then I waited until it was Jake's time to be at
the Live Stock Exchange, and happened in with a can of "Wandering Boy"
under my arm. It didn't take me long to get into conversation with
Jake, and as we talked I swung that can around until it attracted his
attention, and he up and asked:

"What you got there, Graham?"

"Oh, that," I answered, slipping the can behind my back--"that's a new
lard we're putting out--something not quite so expensive as our
regular brand."

Jake stopped grinning then and gave me a mighty sharp look.

"Lemme have a squint at it," says he, trying not to show too keen an
interest in his face.

I held back a little; then I said: "Well, I don't just know as I ought
to show you this. We haven't regularly put it on the market, and this
can ain't a fair sample of what we can do; but so long as I sort of
got the idea from you I might as well tell you. I'd