led to the genial
Imbiber, regarding the sources of some of his ideas.

"Not at all," returned the Idiot. "These ideas are beef--not
Welsh-rabbit. They are the result of much thought. If you will put your
mind on the subject, you will see for yourself that there is more in my
theory than there is in yours. The prosperity of a locality is the
greater as the noise in its vicinity increases. It is in the quiet
neighborhood that man stagnates. Where do we find great business houses?
Where do we find great fortunes made? Where do we find the busy bees who
make the honey that enables posterity to get into Society and do
nothing? Do we pick up our millions on the cowpath? I guess not. Do we
erect our most princely business houses along the roads laid out by our
bovine sister? I think not. Does the man who goes from the towpath to
the White House take the short cut? I fancy not. He goes over the block
pavement. He seeks the home of the noisy, clattering street before he
lands in the shoes of Washington. The man who sticks to the cowpath may
be able to drink milk, but he never wears diamonds."

"All that you say is very true, but it is not based on any fundamental
principle. It is so because it happens to be so," returned the
School-master. "If it were man's habit to have the streets laid out on
the old cowpath principle in his cities he would be quite as energetic,
quite as prosperous, as he is now."

"No fundamental principle involved? There is the fundamental principle
of all business success involved," said the Idiot, warming up to his
subject. "What is the basic quality in the good business man? Alertness.
What is 'alertness?' Wide-awakeishness. In this town it is impossible
for a man to sleep after a stated hour, and for no other reason than
that the clatter of the pavements prevents him. As a promoter of
alertness, where is your cowpath? The cowpaths of the Catskills, and we
all know the mountains are riddled by 'em, didn't keep Rip Van Winkle
awake, and I'll wager Mr. Whitechoker here a year's board that there
isn't a man in his congregation who can sleep a half-hour--much less
twenty years--with Broadway within hearing distance.

"I tell you, Mr. Pedagog," he continued, "it is the man from the cowpath
who gets buncoed. It's the man from the cowpath who can't make a living
even out of what he calls his 'New York Store.' It is the man from the
cowpath who rejoices because he can sell ten dollars' worth of
sheep's-wool