d. I know minstrel people. I know them
backwards. Don't be like them. The only things to do in this world, day
after day, are the things you ought to do. You can't do too much for
others, but don't depend upon them to do for you. A poor, old man is the
saddest sight on earth."

"It's true I felt mighty sore that my folks threw me on the world so
young. But you bet I am proud of the fact that I can buy and sell the
whole kit of them. I help them, I give them, I don't begrudge it to
them; but, while I can't entirely forget the bitterness of those boyhood
days, I can't help but feel a bit proud that I am independent of them in
my old days. And to hear some of them talk, you'd think they made me.
Well, they did, but they didn't intend to. While they were sitting
around praying for prosperity, I was sweating. Sweating, it's a good
thing. It takes all the bad diseases out of you and a good deal of the
cussedness. Say, Alfred, you never knowed a skin-flint that sweat.
Stingy men never sweat. I admire all good people but I would rather see
a man give another a meal, than talk over his victuals and eat them
alone when he knows there's someone next door hungry. Did you ever
notice when a man thinks he's a genius he lets his hair grow long and
when a woman gets out of her place, to be something she oughtn't to be,
she cuts her hair short. Every crank puts some kind of a brand on
themselves. You don't have to talk to them to find out what they are.

"I sold whiskey when I was in the wholesale grocery business. Everybody
in my line sold it. You remember the best stores in Columbus sold it.
You couldn't hold a first-class trade if you didn't sell it. I never
sold it to people who had no shoes. I never sold it to young men nor to
old men in their dotage. There was never preacher came to me to talk
religion or anything else while I was selling whiskey. But as soon as I
sold out the whiskey business, they began runnin' after me. One of them
kept a-comin' and a-comin'. He kept tellin' me how to live, how to spend
the rest of my days. Get a library. A library was the greatest thing a
man could have. It kept your mind at rest; you could seek refuge in your
library at any time when in trouble. I promised him to get a library. I
had one built expressly. I had two barrels of Old Crow whiskey that I
kept when I sold the store. I filled a sufficient number of quart
bottles to fill the shelves of the library, labeled the bottles, and
waited for