le the most popular man in his class isn't
always a failure in business, being as popular as that takes up a heap
of time. I noticed, too, when you were home Easter, that you were
running to sporty clothes and cigarettes. There's nothing criminal about
either, but I don't hire sporty clerks at all, and the only part of the
premises on which cigarette smoking is allowed is the fertilizer
factory.

I simply mention this in passing. I have every confidence in your
ultimate good sense, and I guess you'll see the point without my
elaborating with a meat ax my reasons for thinking that you've had
enough college for the present.

Your affectionate father,
JOHN GRAHAM.

+-----------------------------+
| No. 4 |
+-----------------------------+
| From John Graham, head |
| of the house of Graham |
| & Co., at the Union Stock |
| Yards in Chicago, to his |
| son, Pierrepont Graham, |
| at the Waldorf-Astoria, |
| in New York. Mr. |
| Pierrepont has suggested |
| the grand tour as a |
| proper finish to his |
| education. |
+-----------------------------+

IV

June 25, 189-

_Dear Pierrepont:_ Your letter of the seventh twists around the point
a good deal like a setter pup chasing his tail. But I gather from it that
you want to spend a couple of months in Europe before coming on here and
getting your nose in the bull-ring. Of course, you are your own boss now
and you ought to be able to judge better than any one else how much time
you have to waste, but it seems to me, on general principles, that a
young man of twenty-two, who is physically and mentally sound, and who
hasn't got a dollar and has never earned one, can't be getting on
somebody's pay-roll too quick. And in this connection it is only fair to
tell you that I have instructed the cashier to discontinue your
allowance after July 15. That gives you two weeks for a vacation--enough
to make a sick boy well, or a lazy one lazier.