so low-brow as they like
to pretend? There is a great deal of affectation in this homespun frame
of mind, and many a man makes believe that he doesn't know things simply
because no one has ever written about them in the American Magazine. If
the truth were known, we are all a great deal better educated than we
will admit, and the derisive laughter with which we greet signs of
culture is sometimes very hollow. In F.P.A. we find a combination which
makes it possible for us to admit our learning and still be held
honorable men. It is a good sign that his following is increasing.

LXIII

BUSINESS LETTERS

A text-book on English composition, giving examples of good and bad
letter-writing, is always a mine of possibilities for one given to
ruminating and with nothing in particular to do. In "Business Man's
English" the specimen letters are unusually interesting. It seems almost
as if the authors, Wallace Edgar Bartholomew and Floyd Hurlbut, had
selected their examples with a view to their fiction possibilities. It
also seems to the reader as if he were opening someone else's mail.

For instance, the following is given as a type of "very short letter,
well placed":

* * * * *

Mr. Richard T. Green,
Employment Department,
Travellers' Insurance Co.,
Chicago, Ill.

Dear Mr. Green:

The young man about whom you inquire has much native ability and while
in our employ proved himself a master of office routine.

I regret to say, however, that he left us under circumstances that
would not justify our recommending him to you.

Cordially yours,

C.S. THOMPSON

* * * * *

Now I want to know what those "circumstances" were. And in lieu of the
facts, I am afraid that I shall have to imagine some circumstances for
myself. Personally, I don't believe that the "young man" was to blame.
Bad companions, maybe, or I shouldn't be at all surprised if he was
shielding someone else, perhaps a young lady stenographer with whom he
was in love. The more I think of it the more I am sure that this was the
secret of the whole thing. You see, he was a good worker and had, Mr.
Thompson admits, proved himself a master of office routine. Although Mr.
Thompson doesn't say so, I have no doubt but that he would have been
promoted very shortly.

And then he fell in love with a little brown-eyed stenographer. You know
how it is yourself. She had an invalid mother at home a