ance.

THIS IS CERTAIN.

If you try to match the penny some one has covered, and fail ten times
in succession, it is a certainty that you will succeed often enough, ere
long, to make your failures and your successes balance. Everything which
depends entirely on chance is exactly even. If the man you envy to-day
on account of some piece of unquestionably good luck, were to be as
closely watched to-morrow, he would be seen to suffer some piece of as
unquestionably bad luck. You cannot help noticing his good fortune, and
he never howls about his disasters.

FORTUNE TELLERS

thrive on this principle--taking even guesses, and trusting to the
victim's remembrance of all that comes true and his forgetfulness of all
that does not.

Put up your lightning-rods, get between the cars, begin making
powder--increase your probabilities of getting blown up, of having
something out of the ordinary run happen to you. If you are food for big
fish, go where the big fish are, and you will not be left over for
lunch. If you can be useful to a great railroad man, a great statesman,
or, even, a great nation, they are going to thrive on you. They will
take a taste of you almost before you know it. If you are smart, sober,
and were not born tired, there is no bad luck that can get even a shade
the best of you.

[Illustration]

DISCIPLINE.

"Tarry a while," says Slow.--Mother Goose.

Our generation is formed largely of men who went to war
and experienced the trials and the combats of one of the greatest
commotions of all history. Upon those men was imposed the glorious rod
of discipline. "Thus far and no farther!" is written upon their broad
foreheads as plainly as the God of the great sea marks it on the rocks
with which he has hemmed the shores, and I would not wonder if the vast
prosperity of the present day were largely attributable to that stern
fondness with which the true man passes into the action of daily life,
and obeys orders under fire. Young man, carve yourself down to that
rugged line that will make you a fitting part of the structure in which
you are an element.

BE RATHER THE GIRDER

holding the building than the creaking clapboard flapping in the wind.
When you get an order from your employer, school yourself to move
mechanically to the action implied. Glory in it. Be sure, only, that you
are carrying out the wishes of your superior. Make it your pleasure. It
will become an intense delight. Supp