little loose, and it took him a good month to crowd it.

Josh was a pretty hefty man now, but he kept right on bulging out,
building on an addition here and putting out a bay window there, all the
time retiring new suits, until his wife had fourteen of them laid away
in the chest.

Said it didn't worry him; that he was bound to lose flesh sooner or
later. That he would catch them on the way down, and wear them out one
at a time. But when he got up to three hundred and fifty pounds he just
stuck. Tried exercise and dieting and foreign waters, but he couldn't
budge an ounce. In the end he had to give the clothes to the Widow
Doolan, who had fourteen sons in assorted sizes.

I simply mention Josh in passing as an example of the fact that a fellow
can't bank on getting a chance to go back and take up a thing that he
has passed over once, and to call your attention to the fact that a man
who knows his own business thoroughly will find an opportunity sooner or
later of reaching the most hardened cuss of a buyer on his route and of
getting a share of his.

I want to caution you right here against learning all there is to know
about pork-packing too quick. Business is a good deal like a nigger's
wool--it doesn't look very deep, but there are a heap of kinks and
curves in it.

When I was a boy and the fellow in pink tights came into the ring, I
used to think he was doing all that could be reasonably expected when he
kept eight or ten glass balls going in the air at once. But the
beautiful lady in the blue tights would keep right on handing him
things--kerosene lamps and carving knives and miscellaneous cutlery and
crockery, and he would get them going, too, without losing his happy
smile. The great trouble with most young fellows is that they think
they have learned all they need to know and have given the audience its
money's worth when they can keep the glass balls going, and so they balk
at the kerosene lamps and the rest of the implements of light
housekeeping. But there's no real limit to the amount of extras a fellow
with the right stuff in him will take on without losing his grin.

I want to see you come up smiling; I want to feel you in the business,
not only on pay day but every other day. I want to know that you are
running yourself full time and overtime, stocking up your brain so that
when the demand comes you will have the goods to offer. So far, you
promise to make a fair to ordinary salesman among our retail