"He who comes from the kitchen smells of its smoke."
What can you get at a billiard saloon? You can get the good opinion of
some person who is never civil to anybody. His incivility has a charm
for your young mind. You naturally imitate him.
YOU TRY IT ON A CUSTOMER.
He says: "Have you any buttons like this?" showing one about fourteen
years old. You look at him insolently and say "Nah!" (meaning "No,
sir"). This makes the other clerk (who plays billiards with you) laugh
very heartily, but it makes your employer laugh out of the other corner
of his mouth, for he has no business to keep such a clerk, and the
customer knows it. The customer may avenge himself by refusing an
extension on a note which he holds, and that note, possibly, may have
your employer's name on it! The mistake you make in this particular case
is in applying the manners of a billiard-saloon to the uses of a place
of business. A very ordinary-looking old man was one day standing in a
great bank in New York City. He was talking with a friend, and the
friend spoke of desiring to have a draft cashed which had been drawn in
his favor.
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