've got on their memorandum."

We have not yet touched the question of credit. To whom shall the jobber
sell his goods? It is the question of questions. Many a man who has
bought well, who in other respects has sold well, who possessed all
the characteristics which recommend a man to the confidence and to the
good-will of his fellows, has made shipwreck of his fortunes because of
his inability to meet this question. He sold his goods to men who never
paid him. To say that in this the most successful jobbers are governed
by an instinct, by an intuitive conviction which is superior to all
rules of judgment, would be to allege what it would be difficult to
prove. It would be less difficult to maintain that every competent
merchant, however unconscious of the fact, has a standard of judgment by
which he tries each applicant for credit. There are characteristics of
men who can safely be credited, entirely familiar to his thoughts. He
looks upon the man and instantly feels that he is or is not the man
for him. He thinks his decision an instinct, or an intuition, because,
through much practice, these mental operations have become so rapid as
to defy analysis. Not being infallible, he sometimes mistakes; and when
he so mistakes, he will be sure to say,--I made that loss because I
relied too much upon this characteristic, or because I did not allow
its proper weight to the absence of some other,--because I thought his
shrewdness or his honesty, his enterprise or his economy, would save
him: implying that he had observed some non-conformity to his standard,
but had relied upon some excellency in excess to make up for it.

What are the perplexities which beset the question, To whom shall the
jobber sell his goods? They are manifold; and some of them are peculiar
to our country. Our territory is very extensive; our population very
heterogeneous; the economy and close calculation which recommend a man
in Massachusetts may discredit him in Louisiana. The very countenance is
often a sure indication of character and of capacity, when it is one of
a class and a region whose peculiarities we thoroughly understand;
but coming to us from other classes and regions, we are often at
fault,--more especially in these latter days, when all strong-mindedness
is presumed to be foreshadowed in a stiff beard. Time was when something
could be inferred from a lip, a mouth, a chin,--when character could be
found in the contour and color of a cheek; but