t time had been
paid five dollars and given a suit of clothes!

* * * * *

Peabody lived and died a bachelor. Bachelors are of two kinds: There is
the Rara Avis Other Sort; and the common variety known as the Bachelorum
Vulgaris. The latter variety may always be recognized by its proclivity
to trespass on the preserve of the Pshaw of Persia, thus laying the
candidate open to a suit for the collection of royalties. Besides that,
the Bachelorum Vulgaris is apt to fall into the poison-ivy, lose his
hair, teeth, charm and digestion, and die at the top. The other sort is
wedded to his work; for man is a molecule in the mass and must be wedded
to something. To be wedded to your work is to live long and well.

For a man to wed a woman who has no interest in his work, and thus live
his life in an orbit outside of hers, often causes the party to
oscillate into the course followed by the Bachelorum Vulgaris and the
Honorable Pshaw, known as the Devil and the Deep Sea, and thus he
completes the circle, revealing the Law of Antitheses, that the
opposites of things are alike. The ideal condition is to be a bigamist,
and wed a woman and your work at the same time. To wed a woman and be
weaned from your work is a tragedy; to wed your work and eliminate the
woman may spell success. If compelled to choose, be loyal to your work.
As specimens of those who got along fairly well without either a
feminine helpmeet or a sinker, I give you Michelangelo, Leonardo da
Vinci, Titian, Sir Isaac Newton, Herbert Spencer and George Peabody.

George Peabody was the true apostolic predecessor of Harry G. Selfridge,
of Chicago and the round world, who has inaugurated American
Merchandising Methods in London, selling to the swells of Piccadilly the
smart suits created by Stein-Bloch.

Unlike most men of wealth and position, Peabody never assumed unusual
importance nor demanded favors. In London, where he lived for thirty
years, he resided in simple apartments, with no use for a valet nor the
genus flunkey. He was grateful to servants, courteous to porters,
thankful to everybody, always patient, never complaining of inattention.
He grew to be a favorite among the bus men who came to know him and
sought to do him honor. The poor of London blessed him as he walked
by--with reasons, probably, not wholly disinterested.

He used no tobacco, never touched spirituous liquors, and at banquets
usually partook of but a single di