| in Chicago, to his son, |
| Pierrepont, at The Scrub |
| Oaks, Spring Lake, |
| Michigan. Mr. Pierrepont |
| has been promoted again, |
| and the old man sends him |
| a little advice with his |
| appointment. |
+-----------------------------+

XV

CHICAGO, September 1, 189-

_Dear Pierrepont:_ I judge from yours of the twenty-ninth that you must
have the black bass in those parts pretty well terrorized. I never could
quite figure it out, but there seems to be something about a fish that
makes even a cold-water deacon see double. I reckon it must be that
while Eve was learning the first principles of dressmaking from the
snake, Adam was off bass fishing and keeping his end up by learning how
to lie.

Don't overstock yourself with those four-pound fish yarns, though,
because the boys have been bringing them back from their vacations till
we've got enough to last us for a year of Fridays. And if you're sending
them to keep in practice, you might as well quit, because we've decided
to take you off the road when you come back, and make you assistant
manager of the lard department. The salary will be fifty dollars a
week, and the duties of the position to do your work so well that the
manager can't run the department without you, and that you can run the
department without the manager.

To do this you will have to know lard; to know yourself; and to know
those under you. To some fellows lard is just hog fat, and not always
that, if they would rather make a dollar to-day than five to-morrow. But
it was a good deal more to Jack Summers, who held your new job until we
had to promote him to canned goods.

Jack knew lard from the hog to the frying pan; was up on lard in history
and religion; originated what he called the "Ham and" theory, proving
that Moses' injunction against pork must have been dissolved by the
Circuit Court, because Noah included a couple of shoats in his cargo,
and called one of his sons Ham, out of gratitude, probably, after
tasting a slice broiled for the first time; argued that all the great
nations lived on fried food, and that America was the greatest of them
all, owing to the energy-producing qualities of pie, liberally shortened