e most trifling
service, but a small fee, especially if the service has been good, is a
courtesy not to be forgotten.

Tipping originally grew out of kindness. The knight who had received
special attention at the hands of his squire expressed his gratitude by
a special reward. The word "gratuity" itself indicates that the little
gift was once simply a spontaneous act of thoughtfulness. It has
degenerated into a perfunctory habit, but it should not be so. Excellent
service deserves a recompense just as slip-shod service does not. And no
one has a right to spoil a waiter (or any one else) by tipping him for
inefficient work. In hotels and restaurants the standard fee is ten per
cent of the bill.

Regular travelling of any kind even under favorable circumstances is a
great wear and tear on the disposition. Commuters who go in and out of
town every day are a notoriously hag-ridden lot, and the men who go on
the road are not much better. But there is one enormous difference. It
is the privilege of the commuter to growl as much as he likes about the
discomforts of the road and the stupidity of the men who make up the
time tables, but travelling men--we are speaking of salesmen
especially--can never indulge in the luxury of a grouch. One of the
biggest parts of his job is to keep cheerful all the time and that in
itself is no small task. (Try it and see.) A farmer can wear a frown as
heavy as a summer thunder cloud and the potatoes will grow just the
same; a mechanic can swear at the automobile he is putting into shape
(a very impolite thing to do even when there is no one but the machine
to hear), and the bolts and screws will hold just as fast; a lawyer can
knit his brows over his brief case and come to his solution just as
quickly as if he sat grinning at it, but the salesman must smile, smile,
smile. The season may be dull, the crops may be bad, there may be
strikes, lockouts, depressions and deflations, unemployment--it makes no
difference--he must keep cheerful. It is the courtesy of salesmanship,
and it is this quality more than any other that makes selling a young
man's job--we do not mean in years, but in spirit--an old one could not
stand it.

In the good old days when the country was young and everybody, from all
accounts we can gather, was happy, salesmen in the present sense of the
term were almost unknown. There were peddlers, characters as picturesque
as gipsies, who travelled about the country preying chiefl