want you to enjoy good
society, but any society is good society where congenial men and women
meet together for wholesome amusement. But I want you to keep away from
people who choose play for a profession. A man's as good as he makes
himself, but no man's any good because his grandfather was.

Your affectionate father,
JOHN GRAHAM.

+----------------------------+
| No. 17 |
+----------------------------+
| From John Graham, at the |
| London House of Graham & |
| Co., to his son, |
| Pierrepont, at the Union |
| Stock Yards in Chicago. |
| Mr. Pierrepont has |
| written his father that |
| he is getting along |
| famously in his new |
| place. |
+----------------------------+

XVII

LONDON, October 24, 189-

_Dear Pierrepont:_ Well, I'm headed for home at last, checked high and
as full of prance as a spotted circus horse. Those Dutchmen ain't so bad
as their language, after all, for they've fixed up my rheumatism so that
I can bear down on my right leg without thinking that it's going to
break off.

I'm glad to learn from your letter that you're getting along so well in
your new place, and I hope that when I get home your boss will back up
all the good things which you say about yourself. For the future,
however, you needn't bother to keep me posted along this line. It's the
one subject on which most men are perfectly frank, and it's about the
only one on which it isn't necessary to be. There's never any use trying
to hide the fact that you're a jim-dandy--you're bound to be found out.
Of course, you want to have your eyes open all the time for a good man,
but follow the old maid's example--look under the bed and in the closet,
not in the mirror, for him. A man who does big things is too busy to
talk about them. When the jaws really need exercise, chew gum.

Some men go through life on the Sarsaparilla Theory--that they've got to
give a hundred doses of talk about themselves for every dollar which
they tak