I pretended not to understand what he was driving at, but reached out and grasped his hand and wrung it.  “Yes, yes, Jake,” I said; “we’ll stand shoulder to shoulder and make the lard business one grand sweet song,” and then I choked him off by calling another fellow into the conversation.  It hardly seemed worth while to waste time telling Jake what he was going to find out when he got back to his office—­that there wasn’t any lard business to divide, because I had hogged it all.

You see, my salesmen had taken their samples of “Wandering Boy” around to the buyers and explained that it was made from the same formula as “Driven Snow,” and could be bought at the same price.  They didn’t sell any “Boy,” of course—­that wasn’t the idea; but they loaded up the trade with our regular brand, to take the place of the “Driven Snow,” which was shipped back to Jake by the car-lot.

Since then, when anything looks too snowy and smooth and good at the first glance, I generally analyze it for paraffin.  I’ve found that this is a mighty big world for a square man and a mighty small world for a crooked one.

I simply mention these things in a general way.  I’ve confidence that you’re going to make good as head of the lard department, and if, when I get home, I find that your work analyzes seventy-five per cent, as pure as your report I shall be satisfied.  In the meanwhile I shall instruct the cashier to let you draw a hundred dollars a week, just to show that I haven’t got a case of faith without works.  I reckon the extra twenty-five per will come in mighty handy now that you’re within a month of marrying Helen.

I’m still learning how to treat an old wife, and so I can’t give you many pointers about a young one.  For while I’ve been married as long as I’ve been in business, and while I know all the curves of the great American hog, your ma’s likely to spring a new one on me tomorrow.  No man really knows anything about women except a widower, and he forgets it when he gets ready to marry again.  And no woman really knows anything about men except a widow, and she’s got to forget it before she’s willing to marry again.  The one thing you can know is that, as a general proposition, a woman is a little better than the man for whom she cares.  For when a woman’s bad, there’s always a man at the bottom of it; and when a man’s good, there’s always a woman at the bottom of that, too.

The fact of the matter is, that while marriages may be made in heaven, a lot of them are lived in hell and end in South Dakota.  But when a man has picked out a good woman he holds four hearts, and he needn’t be afraid to draw cards if he’s got good nerve.  If he hasn’t, he’s got no business to be sitting in games of chance.  The best woman in the world will begin trying out a man before she’s been married to him twenty-four hours; and unless he can smile over the top of a four-flush and raise the ante, she’s going to rake in the breeches and keep them.