He cannot tell French from Latin, but he can see
a fair share of the errors in a proof-slip, and will not let the
telegraphic abbreviation for government go into the paper as "goat," nor
that for Republican as "roofer," as I have seen collegiates do.
HE IS ALREADY A LIEUTENANT.
Give him a little practice and he is a captain. With energy and ambition
failure never comes if you only know the difficulties. "Fools rush in
where angels fear to tread" is as good in business as in poetry. In the
great cities there are long streets lined with retail store-rooms of
every quality of location. They rent at from twenty-five to a hundred
dollars a month. Many a store-room has not had an occupant in it for ten
years who did not grow poorer. No good business man could be induced to
enter into a business at such a point. But
THE FOOLS HAVE RUSHED IN,
like the collegiate into the proof-room, convinced that they could do
what good business men know to be impossible,--that is take in eight
dollars a day and pay fifty dollars rent, on forty per cent profit.
Here and there is a grocer who gets up at half past five in the morning,
opens up, puts out his eggs, oranges, berries, lemons, potatoes, beans,
and bananas, sweeps out, gets out his horse, goes to the market-street,
does a day's buying there and elsewhere, and by eight o'clock is ready
for business, just about as the man who expects to share in trade with
him is unlocking his doors.
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