e night I stole--I mean I removed--a watermelon from a wagon while
the owner was attending to another customer. I crawled off to a secluded
spot, where I found that it was green. It was the greenest melon in
the Mississippi Valley. Then I began to reflect. I began to be sorry. I
wondered what George Washington would have done had he been in my place.
I thought a long time, and then suddenly felt that strange feeling which
comes to a man with a good resolution, and I took up that watermelon and
took it back to its owner. I handed him the watermelon and told him to
reform. He took my lecture much to heart, and, when he gave me a good
one in place of the green melon, I forgave him.

I told him that I would still be a customer of his, and that I cherished
no ill-feeling because of the incident--that would remain green in my
memory.

BUSINESS

The alumni of Eastman College gave their annual banquet,
March 30, 1901, at the Y. M. C. A. Building. Mr. James G.
Cannon, of the Fourth National Bank, made the first speech of
the evening, after which Mr. Clemens was introduced by Mr.
Bailey as the personal friend of Tom Sawyer, who was one of the
types of successful business men.

MR. CANNON has furnished me with texts enough to last as slow a speaker
as myself all the rest of the night. I took exception to the introducing
of Mr. Cannon as a great financier, as if he were the only great
financier present. I am a financier. But my methods are not the same as
Mr. Cannon's.

I cannot say that I have turned out the great business man that I
thought I was when I began life. But I am comparatively young yet, and
may learn. I am rather inclined to believe that what troubled me was
that I got the big-head early in the game. I want to explain to you a
few points of difference between the principles of business as I see
them and those that Mr. Cannon believes in.

He says that the primary rule of business success is loyalty to your
employer. That's all right--as a theory. What is the matter with loyalty
to yourself? As nearly as I can understand Mr. Cannon's methods, there
is one great drawback to them. He wants you to work a great deal.
Diligence is a good thing, but taking things easy is much more-restful.
My idea is that the employer should be the busy man, and the employee
the idle one. The employer should be the worried man, and the employee
the happy one. And wh