that you always want to keep your eye skinned for in business.  When it’s good growing weather and the average of the crop is ninety-five, you should remember that old Satan may be down in Arizona cooking up a sizzler for the cornbelt; or that off Cuba-ways, where things get excited easy, something special in the line of tornadoes may be ghost-dancing and making ready to come North to bust you into bits, if it catches you too far away from the cyclone cellar.  When a boy’s face shines with soap, look behind his ears.

Up to this point you’ve been seeing business from the seat of the man who takes orders; now you’re going to find out what sort of a snap the fellow who gives them has.  You’re not even exchanging one set of worries for another, because a good boss has to carry all his own and to share those of his men.  He must see without spying; he must hear without sneaking; he must know without asking.  It takes a pretty good guesser to be a boss.

The first banana-skin which a lot of fellows step on when they’re put over other men is a desire to be too popular.  Of course, it’s a nice thing to have everyone stand up and cheer when your name is mentioned, but it’s mighty seldom that that happens to any one till he’s dead.  You can buy a certain sort of popularity anywhere with soft soap and favors; but you can’t buy respect with anything but justice, and that’s the only popularity worth having.

You’ll find that this world is so small, and that most men in it think they’re so big, that you can’t step out in any direction without treading on somebody’s corns, but unless you keep moving, the fellow who’s in a hurry to get somewhere is going to fetch up on your bunion.  Some men are going to dislike you because you’re smooth, and others because you have a brutal way of telling the truth.  You’re going to repel some because they think you’re cold, and others will cross the street when they see you coming because they think you slop over.  One fellow won’t like you because you’re got curly hair, and another will size you up as a stiff because you’re bald.  Whatever line of conduct you adopt you’re bound to make some enemies, but so long as there’s a choice I want you to make yours by being straightforward and just.  You’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that every enemy you make by doing the square thing is a rascal at heart.  Don’t fear too much the enemy you make by saying No, nor trust too much the friend you make by saying Yes.

Speaking of being popular naturally calls to mind the case of a fellow from the North named Binder, who moved to our town when I was a boy, and allowed that he was going into the undertaking business.  Absalom Magoffin, who had had all the post-mortem trade of the town for forty years, was a queer old cuss, and he had some mighty aggravating ways.  Never wanted to talk anything but business.  Would buttonhole you on the street, and allow that, while he wasn’t a doctor, he had had to cover up a