hat's where you'll meet the clerk who billed a tierce of hams to the
man who ordered a box; the shipper who mislaid Bill Smith's order for
lard, and made Bill lose his Saturday's trade through the delay; the
department head who felt a little peevish one morning and so wrote
Hardin & Co., who buy in car-lots, that if they didn't like the smoke
of the last car of Bacon Short Clears they could lump it, or words to
that effect; and that's where you'll meet the salesman who played a
sure thing on the New Orleans track and needs twenty to get to the
next town, where his check is waiting. Then, a little later, when you
make the rounds of the different departments to find out how it
happened, the heads will tell you all the good news that was in the
morning's mail.

Of course, you can keep track of your men in a sneaking way that will
make them despise you, and talk to them in a nagging spirit that will
make them bristle when they see you. But it's your right to know and
your business to find out, and if you collect your information in an
open, frank manner, going at it in the spirit of hoping to find
everything all right, instead of wanting to find something all wrong;
and if you talk to the responsible man with an air of "here's a place
where we can get together and correct a weakness in our business"--not
my business--instead of with an "Ah! ha! I've-found-you-out"
expression, your men will throw handsprings for your good opinion.
Never nag a man tinder any circumstances; fire him.

A good boss, in these days when profits are pared down to the quick,
can't afford to have any holes, no matter how small, in his
management; but there must be give enough in his seams so that every
time he stoops down to pick up a penny he won't split his pants. He
must know how to be big, as well as how to be small.

Some years ago, I knew a firm who did business under the name of
Foreman & Sowers. They were a regular business vaudeville team--one
big and broad-gauged in all his ideas; the other unable to think in
anything but boys' and misses' sizes. Foreman believed that men got
rich in dollars; Sowers in cents. Of course, you can do it in either
way, but the first needs brains and the second only hands. It's been
my experience that the best way is to go after both the dollars and
the cents.

Well, sir, these fellows launched a specialty, a mighty good thing,
the Peep o' Daisy Breakfast Food, and started in to advertise. Sowers
wanted to