nds, a quick brain to govern them,
and can end with a capital.

Well, there you are; a young tradesman beginning the world without
capital. Capital, though it's a bugbear, nevertheless it's a virtue.
Therefore, as you haven't got it, you must assume it. That's credit.
Credit I take to be the belief of other people in a thing that
doesn't really exist. When you go into your friend Smith's house,
and find Mrs. S. all smiles, you give her credit for the sweetest of
tempers. Your friend S. knows better; but then you see she's had wit
enough to obtain credit. When I draw a bill at three months, and get
it done, I do the same thing. That's credit. Give me credit enough,
and I don't care a brass button for capital. If I could have but one
wish, I would never ask a fairy for a second or a third. Let me have
but unreserved credit, and I'll beat any duke of either aristocracy.

To obtain credit the only certain method is to advertise. Advertise,
advertise, advertise. That is, assume, assume, assume. Go on assuming
your virtue. The more you haven't got it, the more you must assume
it. The bitterer your own heart is about that drunken cook and that
idle husband who will do nothing to assist you, the sweeter you
must smile. Smile sweet enough, and all the world will believe you.
Advertise long enough, and credit will come.

But there must be some nous in your advertisements; there must be a
system, and there must be some wit in your system. It won't suffice
now-a-days to stick up on a blank wall a simple placard to say that
you have forty thousand best hose just new arrived. Any wooden-headed
fellow can do as much as that. That might have served in the olden
times that we hear of, twenty years since; but the game to be
successful in these days must be played in another sort of fashion.
There must be some finish about your advertisements, something new in
your style, something that will startle in your manner. If a man can
make himself a real master of this art, we may say that he has learnt
his trade, whatever that trade may be. Let him know how to advertise,
and the rest will follow.

It may be that I shouldn't boast; but yet I do boast that I have made
some little progress in this business. If I haven't yet practised
the art in all its perfections, nevertheless I flatter myself I have
learned how to practise it. Regarding myself as something of a master
of this art, and being actuated by purely philanthropic motives in my
wis