ting a shoe on a woman who was also an old customer and a friend of
both men. He was smiling in his best manner and congratulating himself
that he was doing very well when the woman abruptly took her foot off
the stand. "What are you laughing at?" she demanded.

Some years later he told Mr. Kilbourne about it. "I decided then that
there was no use in me trying to be you. You had been yourself, and I
made up my mind that I'd be myself."

And that is, after all, the only rule that can be given. Be yourself,
but be very sure that it is your best self.

It is personality which permits one man to do a thing that another would
be shot for. What is charming in this man is disgusting in that. What is
a smile with one becomes a smirk with another. What makes one succeed
will cause another to fail. It is personality that opens the doors of
opportunity. It cannot, alone, keep them open, but it is worth a good
deal to get inside.

We were interested to observe the methods used by three young men who
were looking for jobs, not one of whom would probably have succeeded if
he had used the tactics of either of the others.

The first wanted to talk with the biggest executive in a large
organization. He had fought his way through the ranks until he had got
as far as the man's secretary. "Mr. So-and-So does not see people who
want jobs," said that young lady.

"I don't want a job," he prevaricated mildly, "I want to talk to him."

The girl let him in.

"Mr. So-and-So," he said, "I don't want a job. I want advice."

His manner was so ingenuous and charming, his earnestness so glowing,
that the man at the desk listened while he talked, and then talked a
while himself, and ended by giving the young man the position (as well
as the advice) that he wanted. But if he had been less attractive
personally and the older man had been shrewd enough to see through the
ruse (or perhaps he did see through it but made the proper discount for
it) or had been opposed to trick methods, the scheme might not have
worked so well.

The most universal weakness of intellect lies in the part of the brain
which listens to flattery. Very few people like compliments laid on with
a trowel, but no man can resist the honest admiration of another if it
seems sincere. And since it is the sort of thing that one likes almost
above all else he often takes the false coin for the true.

The second young man met the rebuff so familiar to young men looking for
their