will suffer the
consequences of your own weakness.

Underhand, clandestine information you get is no more than dishonesty
on your part. You can get better information and accomplish your
purpose more surely by going direct to a competitor, stating your case
plainly, and announcing your abhorrence of underhand methods. Your
competitor will appreciate you more for your fairness, and he will go
out of his way to give you information when you have shown you are
square.

Stenographers

Few young men realize the advantage of learning stenography. We all
know the young man who writes shorthand comes in touch with the boss at
once, and while acting as amanuensis or secretary is getting a
schooling that money could not buy. He is going through and becoming
familiar with business as it actually exists.

He sees the decisions made by his employer, and he unconsciously
absorbs methods which would be almost impossible for him to learn were
it not for his proximity to the boss.

Shorthand is decidedly beneficial, first--because it is a good training
for the mind; second--it is a help all through one's life. It enables
him to take down memoranda and keep notes of verbal transactions; it
enables him to get in the private office, and to be in the middle of
the nerve centers of business.

Some of the greatest men in this country were shorthand writers. The
stenographer who is alert soon gets to the center of the business; he
soon has responsibilities given him by the boss, and is in direct line
for promotion.

Hypochondriacs

Here is a type we run across every day in business. We see the
apparently well man taking out a pill box or a bottle of medicine as he
sits down to lunch. We ask him what is the matter, and he proceeds to
tell us about his bodily ills and infirmities.

Many men seem to take a keen delight in having something the matter
with them. They go to a physician, though often the disease is
practically mental.

You can't get health out of a glass bottle. The man who is taking
medicine all the time is going at things wrong end to. If his stomach
is out of whack he should change his method of living rather than to
try to cure his dyspepsia with stuff that comes in a bottle.

The man who needs a tonic before he can eat a lunch had better take
plenty of air and exercise than to take poisonous drugs into his
system.

If you are a smoker and find you have no appetite for lunch, give up
cigars in t