and
to tell how many times they have had the rheumatism; how old they are;
whether they ever had fits; and at what age their father and mother
expired; and putting all the family secrets on paper, and paying Push &
Pull two hundred dollars to read it. When this firm starts a clothing
house, they make a great stir in the city. They advertise in such strong
and emphatic way that the people are haunted with the matter, and dream
about it, and go round the block to avoid that store door, lest they be
persuaded in and induced to buy something they cannot afford. But some time
the man forgets himself, and finds he is in front of the new clothing
store, and, at the first gleaner of goods in the show window, is tempted to
enter. Push comes up behind him, and Pull comes up before him, and the man
is convinced of the shabbiness of his present appearance--that his hat
will not do, that his coat and vest and all the rest of his clothes, clean
down to his shoes, are unfit; and before one week is past, a boy runs up
the steps of this customer with a pasteboard box marked, "From the clothing
establishment of Push & Pull. C.O.D."

These men can do anything they set their hands to--publish a newspaper, lay
out a street, build a house, control a railroad, manage a church,
revolutionize a city. In fact, any two industrious, honorable, enterprising
men can accomplish wonders. One does the out-door work of the store, and
the other the indoor work. One leads, the other follows; but both working
in one direction, all obstacles are leveled before them.

I wish that more of our young men could graduate from the store of Push &
Pull. We have tens of thousands of young men doing nothing. There must be
work somewhere if they will only do it. They stand round, with soap locks
and scented pocket-handkerchiefs, tipping their hats to the ladies; while,
instead of waiting for business to come to them, they ought to go to work
and make a business. Here is the ladder of life. The most of those who
start at the top of the ladder spend their life in coming down, while those
who start at the bottom may go up. Those who are born with a gold spoon in
their mouth soon lose the spoon. The two school bullies that used to
flourish their silk pocket-handkerchiefs in my face, and with their
ivory-handled, four-bladed knives punch holes through my kite--one of them
is in the penitentiary, and the other ought to be.

Young man, the road of life is up hill, and our